Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Royal Philips Electronics (semiconductors.philips.com) announced a worldwide franchise agreement allowing Digi-Key Corp. to distribute Philips’ semiconductors. Philips will continue to work with its established global partners.

Digi-Key specializes in assisting the engineering community with component sourcing and getting to market quickly. Its order fulfillment process enables 99% of all orders placed to be shipped the same day they are ordered.

“Digi-Key provides customers with extremely fast turn-around capabilities that can give them the edge in the market,” said Bill Galione, VP of sales and marketing, Americas, Philips Semiconductors. “Digi-Key also excels at delivering extremely small orders that other organizations might have difficulty with, and this makes it easier for the engineering community to obtain prototype quantities that could help to speed the development cycle of new products.”

DES PLAINES, IL — Kester will host a lead-free seminar, “Project 2005: Achieving Lead-free RoHS Assembly” on Sept. 13 at the Radisson Hotel Dallas in North Richardson, TX.

The seminar is designed to assist the electronic industry in the transition to lead-free soldering and RoHS compliancy.

Topics will include: lead-free and RoHS directive overview; supply changes and procurement issues; board/component requirements; lead-free alloy selection for SMT, wave and rework; lead-free wave, and SMT process optimization; impact of dual systems; BGA rework practices; hand soldering process changes; lead-free RoHS reliability; field rework and training; and training and documentation.

Attendees will receive a lead-free assembly technical manual and CD containing presentation materials; technical white papers; and the Lead-Free Connection.

For more information on the technical content of seminar, contact Peter Biocca: pbiocca@kester.com.
For registration details, contact Theresa Rudnick: (847) 699-5580 or visit kester.com.

SAN JOSE, CA -- Venture Outsource Group is presenting a live Webcast on electronics outsourcing contracts. The event, Electronics Outsourcing Contracts – Development & Negotiations, will take place Oct. 4 at 8:00 a.m. PDT.

The Webcast will be led by VOG president Mark Zetter. Registration and program information can be found at ventureoutsource.com/docs/webinar/contracts.html.

FRANKLIN, MA – Speedline Technologies and Agilent Technologies have found that positional accuracy of a paste deposit relative to the pad is the critical element in ensuring good fine-pitch, lead-free assemblies, and is even more critical for some formulations than others.

A report on the three-month investigation to understand and quantify variables in a lead-free manufacturing process will be presented at SMTA International in Chicago in September.

HERNDON, VA — Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce, will deliver the opening remarks at iNEMI's Leadership Forum next month. The forum is intended to launch a coordinated initiative that will stimulate innovation and manufacturing research in electronics.

SAN JOSE -- June quarter sales of servers grew to $12.1 billion worldwide, up 4.7% year-over-year, a leading research firm said today.

Revenue fell 1.6% sequentially, Gartner Inc. said.

PHOENIX -- Finetech GmbH and Co. KG, a German manufacturer of rework and bonding equipment, will host two Lead-Free Rework workshops in China. The first workshop is scheduled for Sept. 16 in Shanghai, and the second will take place Sept. 19 in Beijing.

Both workshops will follow the same schedule, and include presentations by Olaf Schiema, Dominik Horn and Daniel Schultze on requirements for a repair station, the lead-free evaluation kit, lead-free soldering connections, rework of small passives and automatic repair systems.

User reports and discussion time will be available.

To register for the Shanghai workshop, email Allen Zeng: allan.z@shanghai-atlantic.com.
To register for the Beijing workshop, email James Wang: jameswang@micropowergroup.com.

Fullerton, CA -- Veris Manufacturing has acquired CYR Industrial in Rosarito, Mexico. The 60,000 sq. ft. facility is near the company headquarters, where development and engineering services are based.

Designed to support both low- and high-volume manufacturing, the Rosarito facility’s capabilities include: Panasonic surface-mount Lines; JukiFlex lines; a Universal Radial and Axial insertionlLine; five, seven and 12 zone ovens; Gen-Rad in-circuit testers; Air-Vac BGA rework; and CR Technology AOI machines.

HERNDON, VA — A set of recommendations issued today call for continued availability of tin-lead compatible components for products exempted from European restrictions. The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative today said the measures are necessary in order to safeguard the dependability of high-reliability products as the supply chain converts to lead-free components and materials.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – The July 90-day moving average shipments of all types of circuit boards rose 4.7% year-on-year, and bookings rose 4.1%, according to the latest poll of North American PCB fabricators.

A large percentage of the production includes boards built offshore and distributed by North American vendors. According to IPC, 32% of the shipments reported were produced offshore, up from 26% in June.

The domestic book-to-bill ratio rose 0.03 points to 1.16. The ratio is based on data collected by IPC from rigid and flex producers and is calculated by dividing three months worth of orders by sales. A ratio over 1.0 is considered an indicator of rising demand.

The ratio for rigid PCBs was down 0.02 to 0.99, while that of flexible circuits rose 0.20 points to 1.71.

Rigid board shipments, estimated by IPC to make up more than 75% of all domestic PCBs, were down 2.7% in July vs. a year ago. Bookings fell 11.9% during the month.

Flex sales rose 32.7% and bookings jumped 53.3%. Value-added services made up 56% of the shipment value of flex circuits.

“July is historically a slower month than June for PCB sales,” IPC said in a statement. “Yet the book-to-bill ratios for flexible circuits and combined PCBs continued to rise in July, due to the spike in flexible circuit bookings in June and the trend for flexible circuit bookings to outpace shipments substantially, which continued in July.”

Year-to-date, rigid shipments are down 6.4% and bookings are off 3.8%. Flex bookings are up 16.1% and shipments are up 25.6%. Shipments of all boards are down 0.2% and bookings are up 0.1%.

Sequentially, combined shipments were down 16.4 over June, while bookings fell 27%. Rigid shipments were down 19.4% and bookings were off 19%. Flex shipments fell 6.7% and bookings were down 37.9% over June.

Sixty-eight percent of PCB shipments reported was domestically produced. Domestic production accounted for 81% of rigid PCB and 32% of flexible circuit shipments in July, IPC said.

In a statement, IPC cautioned that month-to-month comparisons should be made with caution as they may reflect cyclical effects.

ST. LOUIS -- La Barge Inc.'s fiscal fourth-quarter profit rose 14% but the provider of electronics manufacturing services said first-quarter results will be hurt by customer-requested shipment delays. 2005 results were aided by strong demand from defense customers.

SPOKANE, WA -- Key Tronic Corp. said fiscal fourth-quarter earnings rose to $2.8 million, up from $265,000 a year ago. The electronic manufacturing services firm said revenue grew 20% to $53.2 million for the quarter ended July 2.