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During the 2004 Apex tradeshow, Techspray (Amarillo, TX) presented Hisco (Houton, TX), an electronics distributor, with the 2003 Sales Growth Award. Hisco, a long-time distributor for Techspray, had 40% growth in calendar year 2003 over 2002. The growth is good news after several years of mainly bad news for the electronics industry.

The company also announced that they have hired Ken Caskey as the North American Sales Manager. Caskey has nineteen years of experience with the Premier Farnell organization including assignments for Newark Electronics in England and Chicago. He most recently served as vice-president of sales for MCM Electronics, an InOne company.

Techspray is a brand of precision cleaning technologies for the electronics industry. Techspray's Industrial product line includes cleaner/degreasers, defluxers, contact cleaners, lubricants, corrosion inhibitors, aerosol adhesives, desoldering braid, hand tools and solder tips.

www.techspray.com

Data I/O Corp. (Redmond, WA), a provider of manual and automated device programming systems, has announced the appointment of Joseph L. Murdica as vice president of Americas and Asia, effective March 1, 2004. Murdica will manage the company's sales organization throughout the Americas and Asia.

He served the company previously as director of North American sales from 1991 to 1996. He was vice president, Americas, with Digital Microwave/Stratex Networks from 1996 through 2002 and most recently held an executive sales position with Aeroflex Corp.

Fred Hume, president and chief executive officer, said, "With Joe's extensive knowledge of our products, our customers and our sales channels, he will have an immediate impact on our results. I'm simply delighted to have him back on the Data I/O team."

Data I/O has representatives and distributors throughout the Americas and Asia as well as offices in Redmond, Canada, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, China.

www.dataio.com

The practice of outsourcing electronics manufacturing gained popularity in the 1970s—largely in the U.S., and today most of the world's largest contract manufacturers (CMs) are headquartered in North America. Yet the never-ending search for lower cost manufacturing has prompted these companies to shift manufacturing to other regions—primarily to Asia. In fact, electronics manufacturing strategist Technology Forecasters Inc. (TFI, Alameda, CA) estimates that today more than a third of the world's outsourced electronic products are built in China and that by 2007 the portion will increase to half.

Profiling the type of manufacturing most likely to remain in North America is the focus of a study TFI will present at its March 10 Quarterly Forum for Electronics Manufacturing Outsourcing and Supply Chain, in the Dallas, TX, area. For the study, entitled Electronic Manufacturing Services Industry in North American Market: Current Outlook and Positioning for the Future, TFI interviewed executives at CMs around the world as well as name-brand product companies' outsourcing decision makers choosing among regions.

"Although most of the executives we interviewed were able to identify some niche markets or region-appropriate functions likely to remain in North America, without exception every executive predicted further loss of manufacturing jobs on the continent," said TFI president Pamela Gordon. "The keys to CMs retaining as many jobs as possible are to offer multinational manufacturing options—whether at their own facilities or through alliances—and to serving local customers with such close attention as to create a nearly impenetrable barrier to leave."

Yet even for the types of business likely to remain, disagreement exists among CMs and their customers regarding the staying power of manufacturing in North America. The CEO at a mid-sized North American CM said, "The strength will be the responsiveness of the industry in North America. This will not be available half way around the world. Cheaper product undelivered does not help the customer's bottom line."

A different response was offered by an outsourcing decision maker at a large North American customer company: "It's mainly price. Mexico, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico have some cost advantages, but if total cost is less elsewhere then the product won't stay in North America."

Other TFI reports to be presented at the Quarterly Forum include Competing with the Dragon: The EMS Industry in Asia Outside China and Outsourcing in Telecom: Finding Value Again. A panel on the future of design services will be moderated by Tom Valliere of Design Chain Associates, and feature Bill Coker of Elcoteq Americas, Michael Shores of Texas Prototypes, Mike Wilkinson of Paragon Innovations and several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) sharing their experiences of using contract design services. Also, Agile Software will coach Quarterly Forum members in tracking materials and recycling in accordance with environmental regulations WEEE and ROHS.

www.techforecasters.com

Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. (Herzlia, Israel), a provider of manufacturing process management (MPM), announced that it has entered into a worldwide distribution agreement with SPEA (Volpiano, Italy) to market the Tecnomatix eM-Test Expert to its global customer base. SPEA manufactures and markets automatic test equipment (ATE) for microchips, electronic modules and boards.

Expanding a long relationship with Tecnomatix, SPEA will offer the solution as the preferred software package to prepare data for faster test programs generation and machine support for SPEA testers. SPEA customers include companies in a variety of industries, including industrial electronics, automotive, safety/security electronics, consumer electronics, lighting, medical electronics, telecommunications, military and aerospace.

The software helps users increase productivity and performance by optimizing test and inspection processes. It will enable SPEA customers to eliminate bottlenecks in their test processes and speed time to market of their products.

Andrea Ganio, executive manager, SPEA, said, "Through our partnership with Tecnomatix Unicam, we will be able to increase the capabilities of our automatic test equipment, while offering SPEA customers a flexible tool that integrates easily into their existing eMPower for Electronics solutions."

www.tecnomatix.com

www.spea.net

Aguila Technologies (San Marcos, CA) announced that Henkel-Loctite Corp. (Industry, CA) has purchased a license to Aguila's patents on a pre-applied flip chip underfill technology. The Aguila license provides Henkel-Loctite the right to provide wafer-applied flip chip underfill adhesives that will enable fabrication of flip chips at lower cost and increased yield by eliminating the conventional capillary underfill technique.

Aguila's work in the field of advanced flip chip packaging over the past few years has led to over a dozen patents ranging from wafer-level and flip chip processes to no-flow underfills. Aguila's invention provides for a two-portion, or two-level, fluxing adhesive underfill approach. It overcomes the problem of applying an underfill adhesive containing filler particles to a flip chip prior to assembly.

Conventional flip chip technology generally requires that flip chip assemblies be encapsulated with an adhesive, or underfill, to protect the tiny flip chip solder joints from thermal fatigue failure. Particulate fillers in conventional underfills are the essential ingredients that reduce the adhesive's expansion rate with temperature fluctuations. The reduced expansion allows the underfill to match the expansion of the chip's solder bumps, greatly reducing fatigue failures during thermal cycling.

However, the application of underfills to finished flip chip assemblies has historically been a limiting factor to production yield and assembly cost. Conventional underfills are applied through a capillary flow liquid dispensing operation that creates a number of production obstacles.

Ideally, underfills would be applied to flip chips prior assembly. Attempts to put the essential filler particles into no-flow underfills have generally resulted in poor solder wetting and reduced product yields. The filler particles interfere with the flip chip soldering operation. These problems have led to no-flow underfills with no filler particles, limiting their usefulness.

Aguila's two-portion pre-applied underfill eliminates the problem. One portion, constituting the majority of the underfill, is filled with the essential particles that reduce thermal expansion. A second portion comprises few or no filler particles. Yet, it is the second portion that provides the fluxing action during the flip chip soldering operation. This results in a pre-applied underfill that does not interfere adversely with the soldering operation.

Aguila's innovation provides two-portion underfills that are pre-applied to flip chips, either at the wafer level, after wafer sawing, or just prior to the assembly operation. Thus, it eliminates the tedious dispense operation after flip chips are assembled. The underfill may be applied to hundreds of chips at a single time at the wafer, instead of one at a time after assembly.

www.aguilatech.com

www.loctite.com

Panasonic Factory Automation (PFA) Co. (Elgin, IL) recently introduced its newest large screen printer, the SP60. It was designed for both the high- and low-volume manufacturer who requires ultra printing accuracy.

The screen printer's benefits include speed--6.0 sec.; accuracy--625 micron (1 mil), with repeatability of 7.5 micron (0.3 mils); and flexibility--full-floating squeegee head, selectable optimized stencil release feature, automated cleaning, universal stencil holding capability to handle 21 in. to 29 in. frames without the need for adapters.

The printer also features an intuitive programming interface. Its accurate cartridge head minimizes errors, resulting in greater productivity and efficiency.

www.panasonicfa.com