Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

Stevensville, MD -- JTAG Technologies, a provider of boundary-scan tools, will deliver a series of boundary-scan seminars to help electronic systems developers and manufacturers increase the quality and reliability of their PCBs. The free, half-day seminars will be hosted across the U.S. and Canada starting in April 2006.

The “Leveraging Boundary-Scan, Achieving Quality”seminars will focus on:
•    The latest developments in manufacturing test strategies with guidelines that show how boundary-scan applications provide access to hard-to-reach, on-board circuitry.
•    Fundamentals of the JTAG IEEE 1149.1 standard and how it is used to perform board-level testing and in-system programming.
•    Design-for-test techniques.
•    Demonstrations of boundary-scan in practice.

For seminar times and locations, or to register visit: jtag.com.

SAN JOSE — Nexlogic Technologies has relocated its PCB design, assembly, fabrication and procurement to a 30,000 sq. ft. facility in San Jose, the company said.

The new space is nearly three times larger than Nexlogic's former facilities.

Nexlogic also added an SMT line, its third overall. The new line has a dedicated Pb-free wave soldering bath, AOI and enhanced BGA x-ray capabilities.

MURRAY HILL, NJ -- The on-again, off-again merger talks between Lucent Technologies and Alcatel are on again. The two telecom companies disclosed last night that discussions are underway, but said there would be no further comment until a deal is complete or talks are called off.

TAMPA -- Electronics manufacturing services company Reptron Electronics today reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $4,000, down from $1.1 million last year, on sales of $36.6 million, up 1.5% from a year ago and 12.3% sequentially.

For the year ended Dec. 31, sales fell 2.2% to $138.5 million. The results include 11 months of results following the company's reorganization and one month pre-reorganization.

JACKSON, MI -- Electronics manufacturing services provider Sparton Corp. has signed a letter of intent to acquire Astro Instrumentation, a maker of medical test equipment. Strongsville, OH-based Astro is privately owned and had 2005 sales of $33.6 million. The deal is expected to close by June 30 and is subject to due diligence. No financial terms were announced.

Astro designs and manufactures a variety of specialized medical products, including laboratory test equipment. The company operates a 40,000 sq. ft. facility in Ohio.

Sparton will run the business as a wholly-owned subsidiary at its present location and retain current management and staff. The acquisition is subject to the completion of a due diligence review and execution of a definitive purchase agreement.

SAN JOSE -- Solectron Corp. reported a second-quarter profit of $30.4 million, reversing a loss of $2.2 million last year. Revenue fell 10.8% to $2.46 billion from $2.76 billion a year ago, just beating analyst estimates and at the high end of the company's forecast.

For the quarter, the gross profit was $29.7 million, excluding charges and one-time items.

Clinton, NY -- Indium Corp.’s senior technologist, Dr. Ronald C. Lasky, Ph.D., and Pb-free program manager, Tim Jensen, will present at an SMTA workshop on March 21, in Milpitas, CA. The courses will be “A Protocol for WEEE and RoHS Compliance” and “Best Practices in Implementing PB-Free Assembly: 2006”.

Dr. Lasky will also focus on implementing Pb-Free electronics assembly at two additional upcoming conferences:
March 27 at PCB West in Santa Clara, CA
March 29 at SMTA Canada in Toronto

At PCB West, Dr. Lasky’s topic will be: “Best Practices in Implementing Lead-Free Assembly, Part 1 and Part 2.” The workshop will focus on how to implement lead-free including PCB finishes, components, alloys and SMT processes. Actual implementation of lead-free processes will be discussed as well as current legislation and practices.

At SMTA Canada, the topic will be “Rapid Implementation of Lead-Free and RoHS Compliant Assembly, Declaration and Documentation.” This workshop will provide the information, tools and resources to develop and execute a plan for rapid WEEE and RoHS compliance.

SAN JOSE – North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.3 billion in orders in February on a three-month average basis and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.01 according to SEMI.

A book-to-bill of 1.01 means that $101 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

Bookings were almost 6% higher than revised January levels and almost 27% higher year-over-year.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in February 2006 was $1.29 billion.

Billings grew 2% over revised January levels but fell 3% versus February 2005.

"Increasing booking and billing levels over the past quarter are indicative of healthy growth, as companies are investing more dollars in technology and capacity," said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO. "The book-to-bill has hit parity for the first time since August 2004, so we are optimistic about growth in the equipment market for 2006."

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

SAN FRANCISCO – Fabrinet, a leading EMS provider, has received TL 9000QMS certification for manufacturing of electronic assemblies and optical devices.

Fabrinet gained certification for its campuses near Bangkok, where Fabrinet has over 500,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space and over 4500 employees.

“Receiving TL9000 certification represents a culmination of our efforts to make Fabrinet a world-class manufacturing outsourcing destination for companies throughout the telecommunications spectrum, from component vendors to system vendors,” said Tom Mitchell, chairman and CEO of Fabrinet.

“Being TL 9000 certified means that Fabrinet can now meet the quality requirements of the worldwide telecommunications industry.”

TL 9000 defines quality system requirements for design, development, production, delivery, installation, and maintenance of telecom products and services.

MANKATO, MN -- EMS provider Winland Electronics Inc. has signed a new three-year agreement with Select Comfort Corp.

Winland will manufacture about half of the electronics assemblies for Select Comfort's Sleep Number adjustable-firmness bed. Winland will also remain the exclusive supplier of all products it manufactures for Plymouth-based Select Comfort through at least June 30.

The new agreement replaces a previous agreement that was set to expire in August. Winland has revised its prices and will see a lower margin as a result.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- Jabil Circuit Inc. on Wednesday reported a 50% jump in profit for its fiscal second quarter.

For quarter ended Feb. 28, the EMS provider reported profits of $69 million on a 35% spike in revenue, to $2.3 billion.

SEATTLE -- Microsoft will increase supplies of its Xbox 360 games console to retailers by two to three times, beginning this week.

The company, which due to component shortages has struggled with production of the popular device, has lowered its target to 4.5 million to 5.5 million units to be shipped by June.

The component situation has been resolved, the company said.

Microsoft outsources production of the consoles to Wistron, Flextronics and Celestica.