SHENZHEN – Endicott Interconnect Technologies has signed a lease to supply fully assembled boards via a 40,000 sq. ft. facility in Shenzhen. The lease currently covers space for one line, company sources say.
 
“Once volume production ramps for many boards, it can occur at EI Shenzhen, which offers both a volume production site and lower cost manufacturing,” said Stephen Howland, product manager of EI complex assembly operations.
 
EI Shenzhen can provide high-density hybrid PCB assemblies – double-sided complex boards with mixed technologies and an average component count of > 1500 – in sizes as large as 8" x 24" for SMT or non-SMT backplanes, the company reports.
 
Assembly technologies include SMT, press fit, wave solder, selective PTH solder, and hand assembly and solder. Components that can be placed on-board include high I/O area array modules (BGA/CGA down to 0.03" pitch, and PBGA), fine pitch leaded parts, and SMT discretes and chips down to 0402 size, as well as high-density, high-I/O connectors. Complete mechanicals – cage, chassis and system assemblies – can be provided, EI says.
 
Products for which the Shenzhen facility can provide production include motherboards for servers and communication applications, as well as controller boards for various medical and IT applications.

STOCKHOLM – Note will acquire 50% of a Philippines-based Ionics EMS facility in China, the company said today. The deal is expected to be accretive to sales and earnings starting in 2008. No other financial terms were disclosed.

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WILSONVILLE, OR – Mentor Graphics Corp. chairman and CEO Dr. Wally Rhines will keynote the International System-on-Chip Design Conference in Seoul later this month.
 
Dr. Rhines’s talk will focus on changing the design rules, the company announced.
 
The conference runs Oct. 15-16.
 
For more information, visit http://www.isocc.org/.

BEIJING – The China Communications Standards Association has created a task force to study an e-waste recycling standard and a mandatory standard for testing detrimental chemicals in electronic products.
 
The latter will require all electronics communications products manufactured in the region to be tested prior to being available, according to a ChinaTechNews.com report.
 
The standard will emulate WEEE and RoHS to help China firms maintain components that comply with EU policies, especially companies that export products to Europe.