TAIPEI – Foxconn announced NT$1.85 trillion ($57.3 billion) in revenue for the third quarter, a 20.2% increase and the highest revenue the company has ever reported for the quarter.

ATLANTA – The electronic component sales sentiment fell to 98.8 in September, marking a decrease of nearly 10 points from August and ending a two-month trend of positive sentiment, ECIA reported in its monthly Electronic Component Sales Trend survey results.

MILPITAS, CA – PCB and multi-chip module design software revenue grew 8.2% in the second quarter, totaling $399.2 million, according to the Electronic System Design Alliance's latest Electronic Design Market Data report.

HYDERABAD, INDIA – Indian electronics manufacturer Cyient DLM has announced the acquisition of US-based Altek Electronics.

AHMEDABAD, INDIA – Aimtron Electronics has announced an expansion of its domestic operations in India after a public listing earlier this year.

NEW DELHI – Sahasra Electronics Solutions saw its shares open at INR537.70 ($6.40) in its initial public offering on India's NSE SME exchange, marking a 90% premium on the issue price of INR283 ($3.37) per share.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Jabil has announced the acquisition of Mikros Technologies, a manufacturer of liquid cooling solutions for thermal management.

WASHINGTON – Global semiconductor sales hit $53.1 billion in August, the highest-ever total for the month and a year-over-year increase of 20.6%, the Semiconductor Industry Association announced.

OULU, FINLAND – Scanfil has announced the acquisition of SRXGlobal and its factories in Melbourne, Australia, and Johor Bahru, Malaysia, for €23.3 million ($25.7 million).

MILPITAS, CA – The global semiconductor packaging materials market is expected to start a growth cycle with a 5.6% compound annual growth rate projected through 2028, SEMI, TECHCET and TechSearch International announced in their latest Global Semiconductor Packaging Materials Outlook (GSPMO) report.

SAINT HERBLAIN, FRANCE – Lacroix reported revenue of €268.1 million ($296.7 million) for the first half of the year, down 9.1% from the first half of 2023.

CAD as we know it for printed circuit design came into existence in the mid-1960s. And while some industry designers still remember the days (more fondly than I would!) of hand-taping components and traces, then using a camera to produce films for fabrication, it didn’t take too long before computers started taking over.

In 1970, Racal-Redac, which later was acquired by Zuken, released its original PCB, schematic and silicon layout tool. A few years later, Scientific Calculations introduced SCICARDS for generating photoplots from Gerber files. Of course, the dimensions back then were epic in size – pads were 70 mils or more, and lines and spaces were 25 mils.

By 1976, the EDA market was starting to pop with companies, and not just for design. Makoto Kaneko founded Zuken. A trio of professors at the University of Texas – James Truchard, Bill Nowlin and Jeff Kodosky – launched National Instruments. A former Tektronix engineering manager, Doug Campbell, started Polar Instruments.