News
The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon, VA) has issued a set of interim recommendations for lead-free component finishes to be used in high-reliability electronic applications to minimize the risk of failures caused by tin whiskers. These recommendations were developed by the consortium's Tin Whisker User Group, comprised of nine large manufacturers of high-reliability electronic assemblies that annually purchase millions of dollars of components.
The group was organized to define methods and tests that would minimize the probability of tin whiskers creating functional or reliability problems in their products. Members include Alcatel, Celestica, Cisco Systems, Delphi Electronics, HP, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Sun Microsystems and Tyco Electronics. The group consensus is that pure tin electroplating presents a risk in high-reliability applications, and they have outlined cost-effective alternatives—using known mitigation practices and some level of testing—to minimize this risk.
This second interim report updates a report published by the group in June 2003 and presents recommendations for lead-free finishes for a variety of applications. These recommendations reflect the best judgment of the group members, based on their own experiences and the available data. The document outlines specific whisker mitigation guidelines supported by the group.
The document also discusses specific component types, assessing the reliability risk of tin whiskers for each and the various mitigation strategies recommended. The group is currently in the process of extending this work to create a user acceptance specification based on the test methods defined by the NEMI Tin Whisker Accelerated Test Project.
The Tin Whisker User Group's recommendations are available at: http://www.nemi.org/projects/ese/tin_whisker_usergroup.html.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Data I/O Corp. (Redmond, WA), a provider of manual and automated programming systems, announced high volume programming support for Texas Instruments' (TI, Dallas, TX) TMS320F2810 digital signal controller on its Sprint family of device programmers. With this support, TI's automotive, white goods and industrial customers have a programming solution for the flash-based F2810 controller along with the already supported TMS320F2812 controller.
Jennifer Skinner-Gray, TMS320C2000T marketing manager, Texas Instruments, said, "TI continues to work closely with Data I/O to assure that our customers using Data I/O manual and automated programming systems have volume programming support for new C2000 controllers as they become available."
The 32-bit digital signal controllers are digital signal processing (DSP)-based cores optimized for control applications that require the peripheral set and ease-of-use of a microcontroller (MCU). The result is a highly integrated system on chip (SoC)-like device that is able to handle control system processing requirements, as well as replace control system host MCUs.
"We are pleased to announce this support for the F2810," said Bruce Rodgers, Data I/O Director of Semiconductor Relations & Marketing. "The automotive market is an important customer group for our company, and we expect many users will embrace this family of TI devices for their range of applications."
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
According to IPC (Northbrook, IL), the North American interconnect manufacturing services (IMS)/ printed circuit board (PCB) industry book-to-bill ratio for February remained firm at 1.08. The ratio is calculated by averaging the index numbers for orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average index numbers for sales billed during the same period. A ratio of more than 1.00 suggests that current demand is ahead of supply, which indicates probable near-term growth.
Shipments in February increased 27.5% year-on-year, while orders booked increased 42%. Shipments of PCBs are up 27.9% year-to-date, with bookings up 30.9%.
The February shipment index was 131.4, up 11.3% from January, and the booking index was 144.4, up 15.3%..
The index shows how current PCB shipments and bookings relate to an index point. In this case, 1992 was chosen as the index point because it was a stable growth year for U.S. PCB manufacturers. A shipment index number of 117.0, for example, indicates that shipments are 17% higher than average shipments for the same time period in 1992.
Survey participants report shipments have increased 28.6% year-to date and bookings have increased 33.6%.
The information in IPC's monthly industry statistics is based on data provided by PCB manufacturers that participate in the IMS Statistical Program. These companies represent approximately 60% of the U.S. IMS industry.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
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