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WASHINGTON -- December orders for manufactured durable goods rose 1.3%, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. It was the highest mark since Census Bureau began tracking the data in 1992.

Shipments were up 3.5%, the fourth hike in the past five months, also reaching their highest level since 1992.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The SMTA is accepting applications through April 15 for its $5,000 Hutchins Educational Grant. Established in memory of past SMTA president Dr. Charles Hutchins and co-sponsored by Circuits Assembly, the annual award goes to a graduate-level student doing research in electronic assembly or electronics packaging.

Students can download and submit the entry form (available at smta.org/hutchins/hutchins.cfm), along with current academic transcripts, a letter of recommendation, a resume and a one-page thesis research abstract.

Presented annually at the SMTA International Conference, the grant is intended for the purchase of technical books and research materials, participation in electronics conferences and for living expenses if necessary.

The 2005 recipient was Leila Jannesari Ladani, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, for her project: "Effect of Voids Caused By Manufacturing Variation on the Thermo-mechanical Durability of Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu Solders."

SAN FRANCISCO – Some of the biggest names in computing have committed a collective $10 billion toward standardizing the Itanium platform.

Senior executives from a number of top firms who met yesterday in San Francisco to map out a strategy for Itanium say they are targeting the mission-critical computing market.

The announcement came at the Itanium Solutions Alliance’s first Executive League meeting. Representatives came from Bull, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Hitachi, HP, Intel, NEC, SGI and Unisys.

Itanium platform revenue currently makes up 58% of Sun's SPARC and 33% of IBM's Power2. Over 6,000 applications are said to be running the architecture.

In a statement IDC group vice president and general manager Vernon Turner said, “Itanium solution delivery to mission critical environments represent a new business model for enterprise and technical computing users bringing choice of hardware platform, operating system, and applications to environments which heretofore have been limited by proprietary vertical solution stacks. A change this substantial takes collective industry commitment and investment.”

The investment is comprised of planned funding of research and development, capital expenditures, sales and marketing, and ISV enabling activities.

Itanium application support has doubled within the past 12 months, the Alliance said in a press release.

The Alliance was founded last September, bringing together companies seeking to accelerate Itanium solution deployments.