Features Articles
Industry chatter has long said M&A activity among the major SMT placement companies is inevitable.
Yet, throughout the gut-wrenching downturn of 2001-02, the widespread pause in 2008-09, and the subsequent fallout starting last spring, nothing concrete took place.
Rapid prototyping and first-article inspection are technologies that have been around for years, but should gain significant momentum in the coming months as companies look to cut the cost of new products. It can't happen soon enough: Years ago then-Flextronics CTO Nic Braithwaite told me he calculated a large, multi-board server program could conceivably cost $50 million to ramp, once all the ECOs and respins were accounted for.
We can’t change time, but we can change how we use it.
Time is the great equalizer – the ultimate level playing field – and yet it holds such different meanings for each of us: the time it takes to get to work; the time between making contact with a customer and that customer buying (or not); the turnaround time to quote; the cycle time to produce; the lead time to deliver; the time it takes to get paid.
The author celebrates her quadranscentennial and considers the next one.
As our company celebrates its silver anniversary, I started to reminisce about the progress made in the electronics industry over the last 25 years. It has been a remarkable journey.
PCB design software development wasn’t always dominated by a trio of giants. Even not-so-old timers will remember the landscape once overflowed with small, entrepreneurial businesses. Pads, Cooper & Chyan, Redac, CADI, CADAM, OrCAD, Symbionics, ACT, Ambit and countless others were the foundation for what has emerged as Mentor Graphics, Cadence and Zuken.
