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The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon,VA), an industry-led consortium focused on strengthening the global electronics manufacturing supply chain, will kick off its 2004 roadmap March 24-25. NEMI member Sun Microsystems will host the meeting at their facility in Newark, CA.

"The kick-off meeting gives all of the committees and groups who are developing individual chapters of the roadmap a chance to meet together as a whole to discuss the ‘big picture' and coordinate on the issues that affect all aspects of the roadmap," said Jim Arnold, fellow of the technical staff for Motorola and NEMI's director of roadmapping. "It's a very useful and productive session that catalyzes the six-month process."

Every two years, NEMI maps the future manufacturing needs of the global electronics industry in order to identify the key technology and infrastructure developments required to assure leadership of the supply chain over the next decade. It helps companies anticipate shifts in product requirements and provides an early warning of changes in technology or infrastructure.

2004 marks the tenth anniversary of this highly successful initiative. The first roadmap was created in 1994 by the National Electronics Manufacturing Framework Committee, a group of 200 individuals from industry, government and academia who came together to study the challenges facing the nation in electronics manufacturing, and to develop technology roadmaps and policy options with which to address these challenges.

Since that time, the roadmap has served as the foundation of all NEMI activities. NEMI uses the roadmap's forecasts to identify critical technology and infrastructure gaps, prioritize R&D needs to meet these gaps, and initiate activities to address industry needs.

NEMI is currently recruiting industry experts to participate in the 2004 roadmap (NEMI membership is not required for participation).

Anyone interested in getting involved with the NEMI roadmap should contact Chuck Richardson, NEMI staff manager of roadmapping, (256) 880-0922; email: Chuck.Richardson@NEMI.org.

www.nemi.org

Indium Corp. (Utica, NY), Speedline Technologies (Franklin, MA) and KIC (San Diego, CA) recently announced a cosponsored lead-free implementation workshop. The workshop, How To Implement Pb-Free At Your Factory, is a one-day seminar focused on how to implement a lead-free electronics assembly process. The seminar will be held March 16 at the Speedline facility in Foxboro, MA. The cost is $295 per person.

The seminar is scheduled to cover these topics:

review of current legislation and practices in lead-free electronics assembly
current alloys in use and why and how they were selected
printed wiring board (PWB) finishes for lead-free assembly
component concerns in lead-free assembly
best practices in surface-mount processes for lead-free assembly: printing, placement, reflow, wave
implementing the lead-free reflow process
special considerations for large boards
establishing a lead-free implementation plan.

The seminar will also include a special case study: Implementing Lead Free to Assemble Five Million Cell Phones: The Motorola Experience. This case study will cover:

solder paste evaluation
statistical analysis of process data
process optimization
analysis and corrective actions for failure modes such as tombstoning
reliability analysis.

Other detailed information that will be presented includes:

state of lead-free legislation, marketing, and implementation worldwide
current alloy systems in use and why and how they were chosen
which PWB finishes are preferred in lead-free assembly
concerns with components and the status of lead-free components in the industry
best practices for setting up your stencil printing, placement, inspection, reflow, and wave
effect of lead-free manufacturing on the reflow process, achieving and maintaining the tight process window
how to perform design of experiment (DOE) to optimize your lead-free process
how to establish a statistical process control program.

Scheduled seminar speakers include Dr. Ronald C. Lasky, Marc Apell and Marybeth Allen.

Dr. Lasky is a senior technologist at Indium Corp. and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College. He has over 20 years experience in electronic and optoelectronic packaging at IBM, Universal Instruments, Cookson Electronics and Indium Corp. He has authored or edited five books on science, electronics and optoelectronics and numerous technical papers. He has also been an adjunct professor at several colleges and has taught over 20 different courses on topics ranging from electronics packaging, materials science, physics, mechanical engineering and science and religion. Dr. Lasky holds numerous patent disclosures and is the developer of several new concepts in surface-mount processing software relating to cost estimating, line balancing and process optimization. He is the co-creator of engineering certification exams in electronics assembly and was awarded the Surface Mount Technology Association's Founder's Award in 2003.

Apell is director of thermal and cleaning products for Speedline Technologies, where he is responsible for the ACCEL cleaning systems and ELECTROVERT cleaning, reflow and wave soldering systems. Apell was previously with Cookson Electronics since 1995 and has held the positions of material planner, master scheduler, inside sales manager and reflow product manager, interfacing between sales and operations to meet customer and operational demands. Apell holds a B.S. in operations management from DeVry University, Kansas City.

As the national sales manager for KIC, Allen has expertise in the management of the thermal process. She has 20 years of experience in the electronics assembly industry covering surface mount, thick film and packaging. Traveling throughout North America, she has the opportunity to work with various electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with commercial, medical and military products. As project manager she works with manufacturers of equipment and materials for board and package assembly for thermal processes. Allen is in charge of KIC's partner program. She is a past chapter president of SMTA and IMAPS and has authored various industry papers.

For more information, access www.indium.com/QuickStart or call (315) 381-7598.

Aegis Industrial Software Corp. (Philadelphia, PA), a supplier of manufacturing productivity systems for electronics assemblers, recently announced that Accutron Inc. (Windsor, CT), a contract electronics manufacturer, has implemented Aegis' new product introduction (NPI) and manufacturing execution system (MES) software. Accutron uses the software to expedite the introduction of new products, deliver paperless instructions to the floor and manage the quality and traceability of its automotive, medical and telecom assemblies.

"Aegis software complements our manufacturing process with a dynamic approach," commented Vijay Faldu, president of Accutron. "Their platform is extremely user friendly and very effective in product tracking throughout our facility. This software has allowed us to achieve an even higher level of process control, which ultimately translates into increased customer satisfaction."

Wanting a single solution spanning the factory office and factory floor, Accutron deployed CircuitCAM, CheckPoint, FUSION iServer, iView, iTrac and iQ to meet the needs of their manufacturing process. These solutions drive computer-aided design (CAD) and bill of materials process, revision management, document delivery to the factory and product tracking and quality analysis in real-time.

www.aiscorp.com

www.accutroninc.com

KIC (San Diego, CA), a thermal process development and control software provider, has announced that its national sales manager, Marybeth Allen, will speak on the thermal process of low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) at the IMAPS Orange Chapter Dinner Meeting on Feb. 19, 2004.

The speech, "Hot Product In Control — LTCC's Thermal Process," will describe applications for the use of LTCC and explain how these applications are multiplying rapidly. Standard components and other modules for communications, biomedical and automotive are being manufactured in high volume. Most of the world's production is currently done in box furnaces, which could be a lengthy process, adding cost and limiting production throughput. An alternative is the production of these parts in conveyorized furnaces. Allen's speech will discuss the advantages and challenges of moving to a conveyorized firing process. It will also include furnace setup, optimization relative to tight process windows and continuous monitoring of the thermal process to eliminate defects.

Allen's expertise lies within the management of the thermal process. She has 20 years of experience in the electronics assembly industry covering surface mount, thick film and packaging. As Project Manager, she works with manufacturers of equipment and materials for board and package assembly for thermal processes. Additionally, she is a past chapter president of SMTA & IMAPS and has authored various industry papers.

For more information on the meeting, visit www.imaps.org/chapters/orange.htm.

www.kicthermal.com

SofTech Inc. (Tewksbury, MA), a provider of design-through-manufacturing productivity solutions, and Cimmetry Systems (Cambrige, MA), a provider of visualization and collaboration solutions for the A/E/C, Engineering, Manufacturing and Electronics markets, have announced a partnership. SofTech will license Cimmetry's AutoVue visualization and collaboration technology for its ProductCenter product lifecycle management (PLM) solution.

Integration of the visualization technology will extend the collaboration capabilities of the PLM, enhancing the solution's document management, design integration, configuration control, change management and enterprise integration capabilities for optimizing product development. The PLM users will gain capabilities to view, markup and collaborate in real-time on native product data of virtually any type, including: 3-D CAD parts and assemblies, 2-D CAD drawings, EDA PCB/IC layouts and schematics, scanned and raster documents, vector files, office documents and graphics.

AutoVue allows users to view, markup and collaborate in real time on over 200 native formats including: CATIA, Pro/Engineer, Unigraphics, SolidWorks, Inventor, Solid Edge, JT, AutoCAD, MicroStation, Mechanical Desktop, Cadence Allegro, Mentor Board Station, Orcad, PADS, Microsoft Office, Visio, PDF and TIFF. It is available as a Windows desktop application or a thin-client server based solution.

www.softech.com

www.cimmetry.com

Universal Instruments Corp. (UIC, Binghamton, NY) announced recently that it has established requisites for a long-term partnership with Shanghai, China-based DaimlerChryslerSIM Technology (DCSIM Tech.). DCSIM Tech. is a joint venture between DaimlerChrysler and Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology.

According to UIC, the objective is to build local expertise in advanced electronics packaging. The two companies will invest in China's future in these technologies by training engineers, working with local suppliers, increasing local infrastructure and supporting local company projects for first- and second-level packaging.

"Our vision is to build an industry capable of servicing local Chinese component manufacturers and assemblers as well as export markets throughout Asia and worldwide," said Richard Boulanger of UIC's SMT Laboratory. "Both businesses will invest substantial resources to nurture local technical expertise and enhance the local infrastructure in Shanghai and Suzhou."

"Both companies are well positioned to develop China's high-tech electronics industry," stated Dr. Xiaoming Xie of DCSIM Tech. "As one of the major players on the local market for many years, I am pleased that this agreement has established long term objectives, as a high level of ongoing commitment is the only truly effective way to establish China as a global center of excellence."

Under the draft terms, UIC—with laboratories in Binghamton and Suzhou, China—will also help sponsor a student from DCSIM Tech. to join the electronics packaging program at Binghamton University. DCSIM Tech. will offer students and other resources such as failure analysis and reliability testing for specific Universal projects.

www.uic.com