News
Speedline Technologies Inc. (Franklin, MA) reported that sales during the first quarter of 2004 were up more than 42% over the same period last year. Bookings levels have also increased dramatically with a growth of 55% over the first quarter of 2003.
"We're seeing an upturn in worldwide electronics manufacturing that is driving higher capital equipment purchasing," said Pierre de Villemejane, president, Speedline Technologies. "Europe and the Americas are recovering and Asia continues to grow."
De Villemejane said most traditional sectors of the electronics industry are participating in the recovery, including mobile phones, consumer electronics and computers. "Manufacturers are replacing obsolete equipment as well as expanding their facilities," he said. "However, Speedline is also witnessing a significant surge in special niche applications and new processes."
Speedline experienced rebounding sales across its entire portfolio, including CAMALOT dispensers; ELECTROVERT reflow, wave and cleaning products; and MPM printers.
"These sales increases are coming from our customer base, market share gains and new market penetration," said de Villemejane. "In particular, the trend toward lead-free printed circuit board processing is boosting sales of our wave soldering and reflow oven products."
According to the company, the recent sales growth also is attributable to Speedline's success in defining and developing new challenging applications and processes with a number of key customers. These achievements include new advances in underfill and medical dispensing, fine-feature printing with traditional and lead-free pastes, and efficient manufacturing configurations for lead-free wave soldering and reflow, fuel cell manufacturing and glue printing.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
SMT Resource Group LLC (Wake Forest, NC), a reseller and integrator of new and refurbished electronics assembly equipment, has purchased the manufacturing equipment from 3Com's plant in Ireland. SMT Resource assisted 3Com earlier in the asset disposition when their Singapore and Santa Clara, CA, plants closed and production was outsourced.
The agreement covers 50 surface-mount technology machines plus testers and supporting boxbuild equipment. Warehousing and shipping equipment is also available for sale. SMT Resource expects to sell most equipment by early summer. Earliest sales have been to established customers in Asia and North America, with some interest from Europe, especially for non-surface-mount technology equipment such as forklifts and storage racking.
SMT Resource has over 100 major pieces of equipment in inventory. Additionally, the company has sold 200 machines during the past 12 months. SMT Resource will sell, integrate and provide support and service for both new and refurbished electronics assembly equipment to achieve best in class selection for their customers.
SMT Spares specializes in spare parts not readily available from Panasonic and Fuji, especially for three- to ten-year-old machines. More spares are being added to the inventory weekly.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
National Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA) has announced that it will offer lead-free packages for its complete line of integrated circuit (IC) products by the end of 2004. The company also will significantly reduce bromine and antimony-based flame-retardants in an effort to make more environmentally neutral electronic components.
Today, approximately 90% of National's portfolio of 15,000 analog and mixed-signal ICs is available in lead-free package types. Lead was formerly used in the plating finish of copper leadframe-based packages. It was also used in the solder balls of array packages such as micro surface mount device (SMD), PBGA and FBGA packages. National will replace the lead in leadframe packages with a matte tin finish and in the solder balls with a tin-silver-copper alloy. Once this aggressive program is fully implemented, National expects to replace approximately five tons of lead used per year.
"Samsung is currently using about one-half dozen different lead-free ICs from National Semiconductor in its flat panel display (FPD) products which are sold worldwide," said Soo Kyung Yoo, vice president Quality Team, Display Device Center, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. "In addition, we have aggressive plans in place to adopt National's lead-free ICs for use in a wide variety of other Samsung products."
Packaging is a critical part of the semiconductor manufacturing process. National's advanced package technologies enable its customers to build cell phones, displays, computers and many other electronic products that are small, thin, lightweight and have long-lasting battery life.
www.national.com/packaging/leadfree/
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
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