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TUCSON, AZ – The ESD Association members elected to its board of directors Gianluca Boselli, Texas Instruments; Tom Larson, Trek Inc.; Michelle McSwain, TW Clean and consultant Steven H. Voldman.

The new board will serve for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1.

The board also elected its officers for a one-year term, including David E. Swenson, Affinity Static Control Consulting, president; Donn Bellmore, Universal Instruments, senior vice president; and Leo G. Henry, ESD-TLP Consulting, vice president.

The ESDA is an organization dedicated to furthering the technology and understanding of electrostatic discharge.

LAKE TAHOE, CA – The ESD Association requests abstracts for the 3d annual International Electrostatic Discharge Workshop.

The workshop will be held May 18 - 21 at the Stanford Sierra Conference Center in Lake Tahoe, CA.

The event invites focus on the increasing importance of system level ESD design and test, as well as the relationship between system and component level ESD. Presentations should address at least one of the following: novel design concepts, special custom design approaches, technology integration issues, failure analysis, test structures, simulation tools, component-level ESD testing, characterization, system-level issues, and unresolved ESD issues.
Abstracts should be two pages and emailed in PDF format to iew@esda.org no later than Nov. 14.

The technical program committee will announce the selections on or before Dec. 5.

The call for presentations may be downloaded from www.esda.org.

ANAHEIM, CA – The ESD Association requests abstracts for papers on the effects of electrostatic discharge, electrical overstress, and static electricity for presentation at its 31st Annual EOS/ESD Symposium.

The event will take place Aug. 30 – Sept. 4 in Anaheim, CA.

Papers should deal with component level EOS/ESD, system level EOS/ESD issues, EOS/ESD factory level and materials technology, electrostatic considerations, magnetic recording heads, ultra sensitive devices, and ESD standards-components, systems and factory.

Submissions must include a 50-word abstract and a four-page (max.) summary.

The deadline for abstracts is Jan. 9.

The submission deadline for the finished paper is June 5. Final papers will be limited to a maximum of 10 pages.

The call for papers may be downloaded from www.esda.org.

SAN JOSE – Rumors abound that Flextronics may be eyeing Sanmina-SCI for a possible acquisition, although neither company is talking.

WASHINGTON, DC – Congress has proposed legislation that would end the US Customs' and Homeland Security's right to seize laptops, phones, cameras and other electronics when US nationals enter the country.

Bills introduced last week by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) provide traditional legal citizen protections to residents crossing borders back into the US, including standards of probable cause before electronics equipment can be searched, and require warrants for search and seizure.

Customs currently does not need suspicion of wrongdoing to search or seize electronics. Many victims of searches claim racial profiling.

In its defense, Customs asserts only 40 laptops were searched out of 17 million travelers over a two-week period, and not all of those were prevented from entering the country. However, the situation has been troubling enough warrant attention from Congress.

STAMFORD, CT – Gartner lowered its 2008 forecast for Asia/Pacific semiconductor growth from 6.4% to 5.2% on an annual basis, as a result of the global economic environment and poor consumer confidence.

However, the firm says emerging markets in India and Vietnam are experiencing higher growth compared to the slowing China/Hong Kong region.

BLOOMINGTON, MN – Vitronics Soltec will relaunch its Five Steps to Lead-Free Soldering seminar with a free one-day event on Nov. 20 in Bloomington, MN.

The new series is the QS Edition: Motivated by Quality, Focused on Solutions.

Jasbir Bath, of Bath Technical Consultancy, will give the opening address, Electronics Assembly Trends, and will present Best Practices in Assembly Processes.

To register, contact John Chugg at (815) 238 7534 or Steve Block at (952) 903 0333, ext. 16.

JACKSON, MI – The New York Stock Exchange has notified Sparton Corp. that it is no longer in compliance with the exchange’s listing standards. The EMS provider is considered below the criteria since the company’s market capitalization was less than $75 million over a 30 trading-day period and, at the same time, its shareowners’ equity was less than $75 million.

SAN JOSE – Global sales of semiconductors grew 5.5% year-over-year to $22.7 billion in August. Sales were up 2.4% from July on demand for PCs and mobile phones, the SIA said.

SAN JOSE – The Semiconductor Industry Association is calling on Congress to put aside its differences and agree on a plan to address the financial crisis.

“There is broad agreement that the federal government must take action promptly to address the current financial crisis,” said SIA president George Scalise in a press release. “The issues that contributed to the failure of the recovery legislation Monday can be resolved, but it will take bipartisan cooperation.

SIA said Congress must restore consumer confidence by taking action on a recovery package this week. “Consumer demand accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy,” Scalise said. “A slowdown in sales of a broad range of consumer products such as personal computers, cellphones, and entertainment electronics would have an adverse impact on semiconductor sales in the fourth quarter, which is normally the strongest quarter for the chip industry.

“The entire supply chain including our suppliers and customers will be harmed if access to credit becomes difficult. Restoring consumer confidence must be a top-priority in crafting legislation that can achieve strong bipartisan support. As long as consumers have major concerns about job security, the value of their retirement portfolios, and their home equity, consumer spending could be curtailed, leading to an overall economic slowdown,” he said.

BILLINGSTAD, NORWAY -- Kitron AS has received new orders from KDA worth some NOK 40 million for the "Protector" weapon control system.

The products will be delivered in the first and second quarter 2009. The new orders bring the value of Kitron's production for KDA to NOK 113 million, with additional ordered expected in 2009.

Kitron had revenue of about NOK 1.9 billion in 2007 and has about 1,400 employees. It is a Top 50 EMS provider, according to Circuits Assembly's 2008 Directory of EMS Companies.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – Already reeling from a major downturn in business conditions, DRAM suppliers now face another challenge: raising money for servicing debt and for funding capital spending, according to iSuppli Corp.

“Although the epicenter of the credit crisis is in the United States, banks from all over the world are being strained by the US housing market and by the destabilizing impact of bank failures in the nation,” said Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief analyst for iSuppli.

“Even with the expected intervention by the US government, this crisis means the cost of capital will rise because cash-strapped banks will be reluctant to take on big, risky ventures. This is a particular challenge for the capital-intensive DRAM manufacturing business. DRAM suppliers that already are facing cash issues soon may not be able to service debts that are coming due soon. Furthermore, DRAM suppliers may encounter problems in trying to finance their capital expenditures.”

Kim warned that some DRAM firms would face serious liquidity issues in the near future, based on the pace of their cash burn and the maturation of their short-term debt.

“Amid weak market conditions and the credit crunch, cash management has become the most critical issue facing DRAM suppliers,” Kim observed. “This will have the impact of reduced capital expenditures among DRAM suppliers in early 2009.”

While some observers have identified DRAM supplier Qimonda AG as being the company most at risk because of current conditions, iSuppli believes the German firm is on more solid ground than many of its competitors.

“Qimonda actually has a relatively good cash balance and a low debt ratio for potential leverage in the future compared to many other DRAM suppliers,” Kim observed.

The credit crisis comes on top of rapidly deteriorating conditions in the DRAM market, says the firm.

iSuppli on Sept. 22 cut its rating of near-term conditions for DRAM suppliers to negative, from neutral, as a result of severe oversupply, weak demand, unexpectedly sharp price declines and the approach of a seasonally slow period for the market.

DRAM demand had been strong until the second quarter. However, the situation changed starting late in the third quarter. Worrying signs for PC demand include a warning from Dell that sales growth would fall short of previous expectations in the third quarter. Furthermore, several retail outlets also reported disappointing sales forecasts for the third quarter, says iSuppli.

Beyond that, woes in the financial sector may impact DRAM sales. The financial area is one of the major corporate markets for PCs, and current challenges in this industry, including large-scale layoffs and delays in purchases because of the uncertain economic situation, represent a further downside for PC sales, according to the firm.

On the supply side, DRAM inventories have swelled far above nominal levels, not only among the memory suppliers themselves, but also for the channel and OEMs. Furthermore, DRAM suppliers have been aggressively releasing inventory to the spot market.

“The growing margin between spot and contract prices is a bearish sign for future DRAM pricing and demand,” Kim noted. “OEM contract prices for 2Gbyte PC DRAM modules will further decrease to the $20 to $25 level, down from the current $30 to $35 range, due to the flood of inventory. This level of pricing represents a ‘dead-zone’ for manufacturers, because it is less than the variable costs for the most DRAM suppliers.”

Some of the DRAM suppliers will stop shipping commodity DRAMs to reduce their cash burn early in the fourth quarter. However, this won’t be sustainable. As the end of 2008 approaches, suppliers will be under tremendous pressure to meet their annual budgets, which will worsen market conditions further in the future, says iSuppli.

“Perhaps the only good to come out of the economic downturn is that DRAM players will lack the cash to over-invest, thus curbing supply growth,” Kim said. “This will bring an end to the oversupply on the market, a situation that has been so disastrous for the industry in 2007 and 2008. The market eventually will turn around – although not for a few quarters at least. However, the timing of the DRAM recovery will hinge on the timing of the economic recovery, which no one can determine at this time.

“However, there is no good news in the DRAM industry right now,” Kim added. “The DRAM crisis is continuing along with the financial crisis. Until iSuppli sees meaningful production cuts from tier-one suppliers or near-term major consolidation, we will maintain our negative rating for near-term conditions for suppliers.”