News
FlexLink (Göteborg ,Sweden), a provider of flexible conveyor systems, announced the official opening of its new manufacturing facility in Allentown, PA, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on March 23. Fredrik Jonsson, global managing director, and Dave Clark, president of Americas operations, shared the honor of cutting the ribbon.
FlexLink's Americas headquarters recently relocated from nearby Bethlehem, PA; the move into the new facility has nearly tripled the company's manufacturing and office space. The move and expansion to a larger facility are part of FlexLink's planned growth strategy and has been driven in part by the need for more manufacturing space for its conveyor and automation business.
Clark said, "Our new 58,000 sq. ft. facility will allow FlexLink to provide the industry's best conveying and automation—hardware and software solutions, respectively—to the pharmaceutical, personal care, assembly, automotive, machined parts, electronics, filling and packaging markets. With over 100 employees in the North and South America, FlexLink is poised for substantial growth in 2004."
The new office can be contacted at at 6580 Snowdrift Rd, Allentown, PA, 18016; (610) 973-8200.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
The 13th annual PCB Design Conference West 2003, held March 15-19 at the San Jose Convention Center, received positive feedback from attendees and exhibitors alike regarding the five-day conference program of over 35 technical courses and the two-day product and service exhibition. The San Jose, CA-based venue, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, provided 1,482 attendees with an excellent setting for instruction, networking and face-to-face marketing opportunities.
"Trade shows and conferences in just about every market have been depressed in the last few years, so it is good to see that PCB design shows are following the same upward trend that we're beginning to see in other markets," said UP Media Group (UPMG, Atlanta, GA) president Pete Waddell. "We also are pleased that so many exhibitors have continued to include PCB West in marketing budgets that remain cautious and tight. Our exhibitors were enthusiastic about the quality of the attendee traffic on the show floor—to the extent that 72% of our 2004 exhibitors have already re-signed for 2005."
"DownStream Technologies decided to exhibit at PCB Design Conference West 2004 because the exhibition provides our company the most targeted access to the PCB design and manufacture professionals that we want to reach," said Rick Almeida, president of DownStream Technologies, an exhibitor. "We are very pleased with the leads that we were able to capture during the two-day exhibition and we've already re-signed for next year's show."
According to Waddell, PCB West conference attendees also were excited by the number and technical depth of courses taught during the five-day conference. Several special events were well attended and received praise from those who participated. These include the PCB Technology Forum and Welcome Luncheon, the Keynote Address by Mentor Graphics CEO Walden C. Rhines on "Breaking the PCB Design Process," the Opening Night Reception, the Pot O'Gold Party and Giveaway extravaganza and the PCB West Book Store, which featured participation by book publishers Prentice Hall and Wiley.
Dates for PCB West 2005 have been announced and the conference will be held March 7-11 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
UPMG's next trade show is PCB Design Conference East 2004, which will be held Oct. 4-8 at the Radisson Hotel Manchester in Manchester, NH.
UPMG is a privately held company that specializes in magazine publishing and trade show and conference production. UPMG currently publishes two high-tech magazines: Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture and Circuits Assembly. In addition, UPMG produces two annual conferences and trade shows for the design and manufacture industry—PCB Design Conference West in the Silicon Valley area, and PCB Design Conference East in the Boston, MA, area. UPMG also hosts the PCB Design Conference Road Series of courses in cities throughout the U.S.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
UP Media Group Inc. (Atlanta, GA) recently announced the winners of the Circuits Assembly 2004 Service Excellence Awards (SEAs) for Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) Providers and Electronics Assembly Equipment, Materials and Software Suppliers.
Participating companies' customers rated each company on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (superior) in five service categories: dependability/timely delivery, manufacturing quality, responsiveness to requests and changes, technology and value for the price.
From a part of each participant's entry fee, a generous donation of $5,000 was made on the their behalf to the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA, Minneapolis, MN) Charles Hutchins Educational Grant. In turn, the $5,000 grant is awarded annually to a graduate-level student pursuing a degree and working on thesis research in electronic assembly, electronics packaging or a related field.
Established in 1997 in memory of past SMTA president and industry colleague Charles Hutchins, the grant is intended for the purchase of technical books and research materials and for participation in conferences related to electronics assembly and packaging, and donations are recognized throughout the year.
For more information on past recipients, current donors and student submissions, and for making donations securely on-line, visit http://www.smta.org/hutchins/hutchins.cfm.
Cosponsored by Circuits Assembly magazine, the Hutchins Grant is awarded each year at the SMTA Annual Meeting during the SMTA International Conference.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
NEPCON Shanghai/Electronics Manufacturing Technology China (EMT China) will be held April 26-29 at the Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Centre. The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA) and the Electronics & Information Industry Sub-Council (CCPIT) of China are co-organizing the high-level surface-mount technology conference.
This year's program will consist of a keynote, technical sessions on lead-free technology and 0201 assembly and two half-day training courses on lead-free systems by industry expert and past SMTA president Dr. Jennie S. Hwang, H-Technologies Group Inc.
The Keynote and technical presentations will be given by the Ministry of Information Industry, Gartner Dataquest, Flextronics International, Indium Corp., ERSA, HITACHI, Kingston Technology Co., EKRA, Daiichi Jisugyo, Fuji, OK Interenational, Siemens Dematic and Solectron.
The first training course, Interconnection Technology and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Surface Finish and Component Coating is intended to provide broad-based information that enhances technology foundation in preparation for lead-free implementation. The presentation will be comprised of two parts: the first will cover lead-free solder interconnections and the second will address the properties and performance of lead-free PCB surface finishes and the component lead coatings.
The second course, Manufacturing Implementation, will focus on achieving yield, quality and reliability. The course will examine the key process modules, including solder paste printing and reflow, and the system compatibility between the BGA/CSP solder sphere, assembly solder paste, component coating and PCB substrate surface finish.
http://www.smta.org/education/symposia/symposia.cfm#nepcon_shanghai
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon, VA) has issued a set of interim recommendations for lead-free component finishes to be used in high-reliability electronic applications to minimize the risk of failures caused by tin whiskers. These recommendations were developed by the consortium's Tin Whisker User Group, comprised of nine large manufacturers of high-reliability electronic assemblies that annually purchase millions of dollars of components.
The group was organized to define methods and tests that would minimize the probability of tin whiskers creating functional or reliability problems in their products. Members include Alcatel, Celestica, Cisco Systems, Delphi Electronics, HP, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems and Tyco Electronics. The group consensus is that pure tin electroplating presents a risk in high-reliability applications, and they have outlined cost-effective alternatives—using known mitigation practices and some level of testing—to minimize this risk.
This second interim report updates a report published by the group in June 2003 and presents recommendations for lead-free finishes for a variety of applications. These recommendations reflect the best judgment of the group members, based on their own experiences and the available data. The document outlines specific whisker mitigation guidelines supported by the group.
The document also discusses specific component types, assessing the reliability risk of tin whiskers for each and the various mitigation strategies recommended. The group is currently in the process of extending this work to create a user acceptance specification based on the test methods defined by the NEMI Tin Whisker Accelerated Test Project.
The Tin Whisker User Group's recommendations are available at: http://www.nemi.org/projects/ese/tin_whisker_usergroup.html.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Data I/O Corp. (Redmond, WA), a provider of manual and automated programming systems, announced high volume programming support for Texas Instruments' (TI, Dallas, TX) TMS320F2810 digital signal controller on its Sprint family of device programmers. With this support, TI's automotive, white goods and industrial customers have a programming solution for the flash-based F2810 controller along with the already supported TMS320F2812 controller.
Jennifer Skinner-Gray, TMS320C2000T marketing manager, Texas Instruments, said, "TI continues to work closely with Data I/O to assure that our customers using Data I/O manual and automated programming systems have volume programming support for new C2000 controllers as they become available."
The 32-bit digital signal controllers are digital signal processing (DSP)-based cores optimized for control applications that require the peripheral set and ease-of-use of a microcontroller (MCU). The result is a highly integrated system on chip (SoC)-like device that is able to handle control system processing requirements, as well as replace control system host MCUs.
"We are pleased to announce this support for the F2810," said Bruce Rodgers, Data I/O Director of Semiconductor Relations & Marketing. "The automotive market is an important customer group for our company, and we expect many users will embrace this family of TI devices for their range of applications."
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
According to IPC (Northbrook, IL), the North American interconnect manufacturing services (IMS)/ printed circuit board (PCB) industry book-to-bill ratio for February remained firm at 1.08. The ratio is calculated by averaging the index numbers for orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average index numbers for sales billed during the same period. A ratio of more than 1.00 suggests that current demand is ahead of supply, which indicates probable near-term growth.
Shipments in February increased 27.5% year-on-year, while orders booked increased 42%. Shipments of PCBs are up 27.9% year-to-date, with bookings up 30.9%.
The February shipment index was 131.4, up 11.3% from January, and the booking index was 144.4, up 15.3%..
The index shows how current PCB shipments and bookings relate to an index point. In this case, 1992 was chosen as the index point because it was a stable growth year for U.S. PCB manufacturers. A shipment index number of 117.0, for example, indicates that shipments are 17% higher than average shipments for the same time period in 1992.
Survey participants report shipments have increased 28.6% year-to date and bookings have increased 33.6%.
The information in IPC's monthly industry statistics is based on data provided by PCB manufacturers that participate in the IMS Statistical Program. These companies represent approximately 60% of the U.S. IMS industry.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. (Herzlia, Israel), a provider of manufacturing process management (MPM), announced that Bosch Security Systems Ltd. has selected eMPower solutions from Tecnomatix Unicam for its manufacturing site in China. Tecnomatix Unicam is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tecnomatix Technologies.
The solutions—including eM-Assembly Expert and eM-Test Expert—will help the company facilitate machine setup and reduce the impact of product changeover in the company's high-mix, low-volume manufacturing environment. Eventually, Bosch plans to extend the application to the shop floors as well. This initiative will begin with the Bosch Security Systems facility in Zhuhai, South China.
Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. also predicted that sales will rise by 15 to 20% in 2005 on top of the 15% growth projected for 2004, helped by higher demand from manufacturers and cost-cutting efforts.
Tecnomatix, a provider of robotic simulation and engineering software, has weathered a three-year slump by reducing 25% of its work force. Demand started to pick up in the December quarter, as it signed a $50 million contract with a major U.S. automotive maker.
In 2003, the company posted revenue of $86.3 million and a loss of $10.3 million.
The bulk of Tecnomatix's revenue comes from Europe and North America. It is expanding rapidly in China, where it faces the double-edged sword of surging demand and rampant piracy.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reservedDigi-Key Corp. (Thief River Falls, MN) and AVX (Myrtle Beach, SC) have signed a global agreement allowing Digi-Key to distribute AVX products. For AVX, Digi-Key will serve as a channel partner, managing an extensive customer base that includes technology leaders as well as small and emerging customers. AVX will enhance Digi-Key's product offering in a variety of categories allowing customers more choices in component technology.
Mark Larson, president of Digi-Key, said, "Digi-Key's ability to provide off-the-shelf delivery on a broad range of AVX components for both prototype and production needs should translate into a real advantage for Digi-Key's customers."
AVX capacitor products are widely used and Digi-Key meets the specific demands of this important area of the electronics market. Digi-Key offers a variety of standard AVX capacitors, oscillators, varistors and interconnect, as well as more innovative products like the OxiCap, which is a low voltage, non-burn capacitor, ideal for replacing surface-mount device (SMD) aluminum electrolytics.
Digi-Key is a full service provider of prototype/design as well as production volume quantities of electronic components.
Serving a broad range of markets including: telecommunications, data processing, automotive, consumer and medical sectors, AVX serves the passive electronic component and interconnect products industries.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
phoenix|x-ray Systems + Services Inc. (Camarillo, CA) has introduced the nanome|x, a high-powered nanofocus four-in-one failure analysis system. The x-ray inspection and failure analysis system can perform sophisticated nondestructive testing processes and resolve minute details. The system is designed to meet manufacturers' requirements of complex semiconductor devices and highly integrated electronic assemblies, yet can be used in the field of micromechanics and material testing as well.
The design is a result of a close partnership with its customers across several fields of applications. As a result, the system uses a high-powered nanofocus tube that can be operated in four modes covering the range from nanometer resolution to high-power radiation. Users can resolve an extreme level of detail (200-300 nm or 0.2-0.3 microns), displaying the slightest defect in miniaturized assemblies, such as pad wetting failures in flip chip solder joints or cracks in bond wires with verifiable results.
The same tube is infinitely variable up to 160kV and can also power up to 50W to see through highly absorbent materials like tungsten alloys used in IC packages or injector nozzles or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
The system deploys the company's ovhm|module technology that, without rotation of the board and thus loss of magnification in the oblique, allows for a high magnification (2000x) and 3-D-like imagery with 2-D magnification acquisition speeds. The tube and detector rotate up to 70° around the sample while providing the needed oblique view necessary to see minute defects in small solder joints found in fine-pitch ball grid arrays (FBGAs), microBGAs, column-grid arrays (CGAs), chip-scale packages (CSPs) and flip chips. This option is ideal for determining z-position solder voids, inspecting wetting quality, detecting cracks in bond wires, inspecting BGA device joint stacks and ball bond quality and measurement of via plating in both IC and printed circuit board (PCB) production.
The intensifier in the system is a digital detector technology and video system that delivers distinct images in pseudo real-time of poor absorbing materials with enhanced contrast.
Additional features include the automated inspection of BGA and quad flat pack (QFP) solder joints by an algorithm for the automated pad wetting analysis, software for the automated backend, software for the automated die-attach voiding calculation following user-defined standards and an ergonomic design for comfortable operation.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon, VA), an industry-led consortium focused on strengthening the global electronics supply chain, and the IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society (CPMT, Piscataway, NJ) have entered into a formal agreement that outlines key areas of collaboration between the two organizations.
One of the primary collaborations under this new agreement will be roadmap development, beginning with the 2004 NEMI roadmap. The roadmaps, created every two years, map the future manufacturing needs of the electronics industry to identify the key technology and infrastructure developments required to assure leadership of the global supply chain over the next decade. It helps companies anticipate shifts in product requirements and provides an early warning of changes in technology or infrastructure.
The CPMT Society's members are technical professionals whose fields of expertise complement and substantially overlap with NEMI, and many CPMT Society members have represented their respective employers in the development of previous NEMI roadmaps. With more than 40% of the Society's members outside the U.S., the CPMT Society is committing experienced professionals from Europe, Asia and North America to many of the NEMI roadmap chapter committees.
Involvement of this broad-based group will help NEMI in its efforts to globalize the scope of the 2004 roadmap. Other areas of collaboration include NEMI involvement in CPMT Society-sponsored conferences, workshops and refereed publications, and CPMT Society coordination with the NEMI Technical Committee on development of research and development priorities.
"We have worked informally with the CPMT Society for many years, but wanted to form a more structured relationship with planned activities that would allow us to work together rather than just doing things on an opportunistic basis," said Jim McElroy, executive director and chief executive officer of NEMI.
Rolf Aschenbrenner, vice president of technical activities for the CPMT Society, said, "We also look forward to NEMI members presenting their work at CPMT Society workshops and conferences as well as soliciting papers for IEEE CPMT Transactions journals. In fact, we are already coordinating a NEMI tin whisker workshop as part of our Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) in Las Vegas this June."
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
EFD Inc. (East Providence, RI)'s new Ultra 2400 Dispensing Workstation is a precision dispensing system that applies accurate, consistent amounts of solder paste, flux, adhesives, epoxies and other fluids used in electronics assembly processes—from uniform dots as small as 0.10160 mm (0.004 in.) in diameter to neat, controlled beads.
According to the company, benefits of the system's consistent fluid application include higher yields, reduced fluid costs, better process control and shorter training time for new operators.
The workstation features a vertical design that conserves benchtop space and a footprint 60% smaller than standard electro-pneumatic dispenser configurations.
Standard features include: simultaneous digital display of dispense time, air pressure, vacuum, shot count and dispense mode, for greater process control than standard analog gauges; dispense time adjustable in 0.0001 second increments for precise control of deposit size; an internal pressure reservoir that reduces cycle time and improves deposit control; multilingual display in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese or Japanese; automatic voltage regulation from 85 to 265 volts, with universal power plugs; automatic U.S./metric conversion of all dispensing parameters; and security lockout with tamper-proof password control
Several accessories are available to customize the workstation, including a flexible task light, a 1.7X magnifier for precision closeup work, a flexible syringe barrel holder, and an ergonomic barrel grip with a touch-sensor finger switch and LED spotlight to illuminate the dispensing area.
The system includes all components needed to begin immediate production, including dispense tips, syringe barrels and pistons matched to the user's specific application.
EFD Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nordson Corp., a producer of precision dispensing equipment.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Press Releases
- ViTrox Americas Expands and Upgrades Its ViTrox Demo Center (VDC); Sy Creed Comments
- SisTech Manufacturing Selects Europlacer to Power High-Mix, High-Reliability Growth
- Q Source Announces New Partnership with C2V to Expand Safety Solutions Offering
- Altus Helps FermionX Enhance Production with Advanced Inspection Solutions; Joe Booth and Will Patrick Comment