TOKYO -- METI, Japan's government body for market data, said August PWB
production in Japan was up 3.5% year-on-year, reaching 69,375 million yen. It was the first positive
growth this year.
Sales were down just 0.2% from July. According to Dominique Numakura,
an PCB analyst, the trend breaks with historical norms. August is
typically the slowest month of the year for Japanese PWB makers as
production
declines more than 10% sequentially due to summer vacations.
Rigid board shipments grew 7.3% to 43,679 million yen from a year ago.
Single sided boards declined, while double-sided and build-up boards
rose -- the latter more than 20% growth yoy.
Flex circuits totaled 10,767 million yen, down 3.5%
decline from July and 17.6% from last year. Single-sided flex fell 9.6% from a year
ago but grew 7.9% over July. Double-sided flex fell 11.2%
from July and 23% decline from 2004.
"It may be too early to confirm the
recovery trend of the PWB business in Japan; however, there are several
positive numbers in the METI data, and several signs of recovery in the
market," Numakura wrote in his weekly newsletter. "I have been communicating with several major PWB companies in
Japan, and they agree that manufacturing companies are getting more
orders, and shipments will have remarkable growth from October."
SAN JOSE -- Randy Furr, president and chief operating officer of Sanmina-SCI
Corp. for the past 9 years, is
leaving the company for personal and family reasons.
Furr was named president and COO in March
1996. He joined the company as chief financial officer in August 1992.
Furr will also resign as a director.
ORMOND BEACH, FL -- Noted soldering and reliability expert
Werner Engelmaier will produce three workshops on solder joint
reliability in Boston in December.
The workshops are part of the Engelmaier Series of Solder Joint Reliability, and will take place Dec. 5.
The Dec. 5 workshops include: Fundamentals in Solder Joint Reliability; Failure Mode and Root Cause Analyses (Fatigue, Brittle
Fracture, ENIG); Acceleration Models, Reliability Tests and Screening Procedures. They take place at Philips
Medical Systems in Andover, MA.
A fourth workshop will be
presented Dec. 6, as part of the IPC/JEDEC 11th International
Lead-Free Conference, also in Boston.
Registrations are required. For more information, email engelmaier@aol.com.