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The Webinar will take place Nov. 15 at 11 a.m. EST.
Areas of discussion will include an overview of the printing process, basics of stencil design, and the impact of design on defect reduction and cycle time. In addition, several “real world” stencil designs successful in eliminating manufacturing defects will be discussed.
To register, visit www.speedlinetech.com/seminars.
INDIANAPOLIS – Specialty Coating Systems has completed its acquisition of Parylene Japan K.K.
The deal was finalized Sept. 14.
SCS will do business in Japan as Parylene Japan Inc. (Nihon Parylene Kabushiki Gaisha) and will continue to be led by president Eddie Narita.
The 10,000 sq.-ft. Tokyo facility is ISO 9001:2000 certified and includes two Class 10K cleanrooms.
PJKK, a joint venture between SCS and Three Bond Co. Ltd., was established in 1990 to provide Parylene conformal coating services and technologies in Japan.
Celestica was presented with the SMTA Corporate Partnership Award in recognition of its support of the association's global technical and certification programs. Celestica is the only company to have won the award twice.
Engineering principal Jeff Kennedy accepted the Founders Award for contributions to the industry and the SMTA. Since joining the SMTA in 1988, Kennedy has been a local chapter driver and has been involved in national SMTA conferences as a speaker and chairman. He also launched and chaired the association's Medical Electronics Conference during its first two years.
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]-->Heather McCormick, process development engineering advisor, received an award for the Best International Paper of the 2006 conference proceedings. The award recognized “Mixing Metallurgy: Reliability of Tin-silver-copper (SAC) Balled Area Array Packages Assembled Using Tin-lead (SnPB) Solder.” The paper was written by McCormick and co-authors Simin Bagheri, Polina Snugovsky, Craig Hamilton, Zohreh Bagheri, George Riccitelli and Ramesh Mohabir. <!--[endif]-->
Concerns are rising regarding the sub prime mess, the turmoil surrounding the financial markets and how these issues will impact business and consumer spending in the U.S., the research firm says. Rising defaults on U.S. home loans may limit consumers’ disposable spending during the holiday period this year, iSuppli adds.
“While LCD panel suppliers expect prices to increase for the remainder of 2007 due to supply tightness, iSuppli believes inventory increases will result in softness in panel demand among end-product makers and channel participants, especially in the monitor market,” said Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research at iSuppli. “This may affect fourth-quarter pricing of large-sized panels. The issue could become more of a problem if consumers stop spending and tighten their purse strings because of the mortgage problems in the fourth quarter.”
From April through September, LCD makers raised the prices of products at a 15 to 25% rate for notebook and monitor panels, and a 5 to 7% rate for 32-inch and smaller TV panels, reports iSuppli. However, branded vendors are being forced into price cuts to move inventory. The North American market is the biggest cause for concern right now because of the tumultuous economic atmosphere. However, the ramifications of this will be felt among the Asian manufacturers and the global supply chain, the firm states.
In addition, while long-term demand for notebook panels is still positive, notebook production may be impacted as a result of component shortages, says iSuppli. Notebook panel production also may be impacted as manufacturing capacity for these displays is diverted to fast-growing small- to medium-size applications such as digital photo frames, personal navigation devices, car TVs and ultra-mobile PCs.
Panel suppliers Innolux, CPT and AUO are planning to shift more of their fourth and 4.5-generation capacity in some of their fabs to small- and medium-sized panels, says iSuppli. Some are even planning to use some fifth-generation capacity for those size panels. Notebook panel prices increased by between 1 and 2% in September compared to August, the company notes.
iSuppi predicts actual notebook PC shipments in the second half of the year will fall short of expectations because of component shortages. Besides LCD panels, notebook PC manufacturers are reporting shortages of ICs, batteries, optical drives and PCBs. Many notebook PC suppliers said they expected these component shortages to last until October, while others are concerned that they may continue through the end of the year. If notebook PC production is indeed impacted by this component shortage throughout the remainder of 2007, it will impact panel demand, adding to the overall uneasiness being felt in the LCD industry, says iSuppli.
Revenue fell 3% to $100.1 million, Merix reports.
The company says it attributes this decline to lower North American revenue.
Merix expects second quarter results to be in the range of a breakeven to a net loss of $2 million.
For the quarter ending in November, the company forecasts revenue in the range of $98 million to $102 million.
