Come November, Cookson will raise IPA flux prices 70 cents per gallon, in response to the volatility of petrochemical prices on the world market. The company said that isopropyl alcohol prices have risen 78% since June 2003
"Faced with this significant rise in petrochemical-based solvent prices, we were forced to announce this limited price increase on alcohol-based flux products," said Mitch Holtzer, global product manager-flux products.
Cookson said the decision would not affect pricing for its water-based VOC-free flux line.
ATLANTA, GA, Sept. 23 — More than 50 exhibiting companies will display and demonstrate their products, services and technologies for the PCB design industry during the ninth annual PCB Design Conference East 2004.
Scheduled for October 4-8 at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, NH, the event includes a two-day exhibition and a five-day conference of technical courses centered around the theme: "Education for Your Most Pressing Design Challenges: Including Lead-Free, Embedded Components, High Speed and PCB Design Fundamentals."
Special events that are free to registered attendees include "The Impact of Lead-Free on PCB Design" keynote address by Joseph Fjelstad, a co-founder of Silicon Valley startup SiliconPipe and Tessera's first fellow; an opening night reception in the exhibit hall; and the Brew-ha-ha Party at Jillian's in downtown Manchester, featuring food, drink and music by the Porch Dawgs (an infamous blues band made up of musically-inclined PCB industry professionals).
The following products and/or services are among the many to be featured at the show:
· Calumet Electronics Corp. (Booth 302) will feature lead-free surface coatings, including an electroless nickel/immersion gold (KAT Process) alternative to HASL and Presa RGA-14, an immersion silver process.
· ChipData's (Booth 120) PkgXpert 2.5 helps electronic OEMs and contract manufacturers to streamline the board manufacturing process by creating a specification-driven, standardized package geometry library that can be shared and regenerated whenever specifications change.
· Dynamic Details (Booth 119) will feature Stacked Microvia Technology (SMV), which improves routing density and design flexibility.
· Intercept Technology (Booth 101) will demonstrate and announce the release of Pantheon v5.0, Mozaix v2.1 and INDX v2.1.
· Polar Instruments (Booth 105) will feature the enhanced stackup builder SB200a v2.0, which now interfaces to the industry standard Si800m impedance solver to offer brilliant stackup graphics plus stack, drill and impedance data in a variety of file and print formats. A free reader allows users to easily share this high quality stackup presentation with anyone.
· Sovereign Circuits (Booth 214) will feature the addition of immersion silver finish to their product offerings.
· T-Tech (Booth 201) will feature QC Trace Cam, an integrated inspection system specifically for applications requiring magnified inspection area. Easy to install, QC Trace Cam allows real-time viewing of traces.
· Zuken USA (Booth 202) will feature CADSTAR 7, a PCB Desktop Solution that delivers a powerful price/performance package for PC-based PCB design. Zuken USA also will feature CR-5000, which incorporates the latest technology requirements (embedded components, RF design and design re-use) within a constrained design process methodology.
Terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close within 30 days.
The transaction includes the assets and employees of Power Systems.
BOSTON, Sept. 20, 2004 — Teradyne Inc. today cut its outlook for the September quarter, citing lower customer spending.
"Our customers are reducing their spending in the face of what appears to be an industry-wide slowdown," said Michael Bradley, president and CEO. "As a result, we are now projecting third quarter shipments to be between $450 million and $470 million. Our earnings per share are now expected to be between 21 and 26 cents, on a diluted basis."
Teradyne had previously projected sales of between $530 million to $560 million for the third quarter, with earnings per share projected to be between 39 and 46 cents.
Teradyne will report third quarter results on Oct. 19.
Mentor Links PADS to Outside Libraries
09-23-2004
by Mike Buetow
WILSONVILLE, OR, Sept. 22 -— A pair of component libraries will now be available within Mentor Graphics' PADS PCB design flow.
Under a just announced agreement, PADS design tool users will have access to symbol and footprint databases of Optimum Design Associates (optimumdesign.com) and PCB Libraries (pcblibraries.com).
The arrangement should cut library creation times for users, Mentor said.
"Optimum and PCB Libraries allow direct interaction with suppliers of quality component symbols and footprints," said Syed Gilani, PADS general manager, in a press statement. This access can translate into significant time and resource savings as the designer will not need to develop libraries from scratch for use within the PADS flow."
Rhode Island -- AIM has appointed Cluff and Associates as manufacturers' rep for the company's line of solders and related assembly materials in Colorado.
Cluff & Associates, headquartered in Denver, CO, specializes in sales, service and customer support for electronic production materials and equipment.
AIM is a global manufacturer of assembly materials for the electronics industry. The company produces solder paste, liquid flux, cored wire, bar solder, adhesives, preforms and specialty alloys such as indium and gold for the electronics assembly, PC fabrication, component manufacturing and other industries.
By the end of its fiscal 2005 second quarter, the company will lay off 160 workers and close 100,000 sq. ft. of capacity, Plexus said in a press statement.
The move is expected to generate $2 million in pretax savings per year.
The closure is not expected to impact fiscal 2004 fourth quarter revenue or EPS guidance (excluding restructuring charges and valuation allowance. Plexus updated its revenue guidance to be at the low end of its previously announced range of $270 million to $280 million.
The company will take charges over the next three quarters, $4 million to $5 million in the fourth quarter and $6 million to $8 million over the following two quarters.
Plexus also said start-up costs of its new Malaysian facility are higher than expected, due in part to a slower-than-expected rate of customer qualifications.For its fiscal fourth quarter ended Aug. 31, revenue climbed to $1.63 billion from $1.30 billion. Excluding one-time charges items, Jabil posted a profit of $54.7 million.
The company guided for 2005 revenue of $7.2 billion to $7.4 billion, $1.75 billion to $1.85 billion in the first quarter.
Jabil president Tim Main told analysts during a conference call yesterday that conditions in the industry were stable. "I would characterize the current environment as stable and steady. From my perspective, the prospects for our business and industry are as good as they've been at any time in the last four years,"
The company reported new program wins in consumer, instrumentation and medical, and peripheral applications. However, it said it saw weakness in communications.
Caskh from operations was nearly $100 million, and cash conversion cycle days remained at 26.
The firms will provide on-site equipment service, training, and applications support.
The firms are:
Asymtek is retaining an existing rep firm, Electronic Scientific Engineering.
As part of the restructuring the company will also layoff 500 employees, the firm said in a Sept. 16 filing with the SEC.
Solectron also plans to take a $47 million restructuring charge due to the halting of production of various PC and computing products. According to a Deutsche Bank analyst, the move is "likely a result of a supply agreement being terminated with either HP or IBM (from a previous acquisition)."
Solectron also finalized the sale of its minority interest in ECS Holdings Ltd. for $16 million in cash. Solectron expects fiscal fourth-quarter losses of $6 million to $15 million related to the sale.As of July 1, 2006, the European Union will mandate all semiconductor packages be lead-free. Most chip packages shipped today use a layer of tin and lead over copper. Lead-free substitutes will likely use tin over copper and will be processed by higher temperatures (owing to the higher reflow profiles of lead-free solder pastes).
Research at Agere has shown that tin-copper packaging meet current standard tests developed for leaded product. However, when using the products like the customer uses them, Agere has observed that commercially available tin-copper packaging form tin whiskers, which are known to cause electrical shorts and other system failures.
Three tests proposed by the Jedec Solid State Technology Association with guidance from the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative effectively screen for susceptibility to tin whiskers. Of the three tests, two display no discernable difference between matte-tin on copper and nickel undercoated matte-tin on copper. According to Agere, a layer of nickel between the copper and tin provides "dramatic improvements" using real-world environment.
Agere evaluated semiconductor packages from multiple sources using various tin plating processes. Agere observed tin whiskers would grow on semiconductor packages after the packages had gone through a lead-free assembly process onto boards that used tin plating (instead of tin-lead).
Adding a layer of nickel between the layers of tin and copper mitigated tin whisker growth, Agere found.
"We are unveiling these findings in hopes that the electronics industry will adopt our approach to avoid the problems Agere observed in currently accepted copper and tin packages," said Dr. Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, director of packaging and interconnect technology. "We evaluated multiple options being used by other semiconductor companies in a scientifically valid study over a prolonged timeframe and found that Agere's tin-nickel-copper combination resolved the tin whisker problem seen after high-temperature, high-humidity storage."
Early results from an independent study conducted by NEMI corroborate the Agere findings on whiskers found on commercially available tin over copper packages, Agere said.
NEMI will publish its own findings next year.
FRANKLIN, MA, Sept. 20 -- Speedline Technologies has been awarded U.S. patent no. 6,738,505 for a texture-based method of analyzing potential bridge defects on circuit boards during post-print inspection.
The patent describes the use of so-called texture-based image acquisition algorithms and a digital camera to assess of the quality of paste deposits. The patent itself describes the method of using texture in the detection of paste in a region of interest between printed deposits.
Speedline markets the process as part of the MPM BridgeVision brand.
In a statement, Dr. Gerald Pham-Van-Diep, director of advanced development, said, "Prior to our innovation, manufacturers had to either rely on contrast-based methods, where the difference between the pasted deposit and soldermask was insufficient for repeatable or rapid measurement, or were compelled to purchase expensive 100% 3D AOI systems."
Based on data collected this month, GPS shipments could reach 61.3 billion units this year, up from 41.8 billion last year.
North America buys 63.3% of GPS systems sold, Europe 28% and Asia Pacific 6.3%, IEK said.
By application, handhelds make up 41% of all GPS systems, car-use 11%, mice 9%, modules 4% and wireless telecom 3%