The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon, VA), an industry-led consortium focused on strengthening the global electronics manufacturing supply chain, is planning several meetings at IPC SMEMA Council's APEX conference on Feb. 23-26, in Anaheim, CA. Several projects will be reporting on activities in conference sessions; the recently formed RoHS Transition initiatives will hold meetings to discuss areas of focus, objectives and activities; and several of the roadmap Technology Working Groups (TWGs) will begin discussions for the 2004 NEMI Roadmap.

NEMI's Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) Project will be featured as one of the APEX free forums on Feb. 25. The project is nearing completion of its investigation into package-level DPMO rates throughout the electronics assembly industry. Such DPMO data can be used to quantify the expected fault spectrum on particular printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies, enabling manufacturers to more accurately assess the cost of assembly, test, repair and scrap and also to estimate shipped product quality levels. During the forum, the DPMO Project team will present findings from their study, briefly review methodology, share lessons learned and discuss their vision for follow-on DPMO efforts in the industry.

Several of NEMI's optoelectronics projects will be discussed in conference sessions. Reports from the Fiber Optic Splice Improvement Project and the Optoelectronic Substrate Cost/Performance Analysis Project are featured in a panel on optoelectronics on Feb. 26. A third optoelectronic project—the Fiber Optical Signal Performance team—has a paper session scheduled on the show floor on Feb. 26 to discuss their paper, "Degradation of Optical Performance of Fiber Optic Connectors in a Manufacturing Environment."

Several of the roadmap TWGs are holding their initial organizational meetings. The TWGs are responsible for development of roadmap chapters on specific topics and are actively recruiting industry participants. Board Assembly, Environmentally Conscious Electronics and Interconnect Substrates—Organic are all scheduled to meet at APEX.

The RoHS Transition Task Group and four initiatives organized under this group will also hold meetings that are open to non-members. These efforts were organized in late 2003 in response to findings of the 2002 NEMI Roadmap, which highlighted the need for standards for collection, documentation and transmittal of material content data of components, assemblies and systems to meet the requirements of pending regulations. The group addresses supply chain issues surrounding the transition of the electronics industry to lead-free assembly. The meeting on Feb. 26 will provide an overview of group activities and include presentations from all of the working projects as well as a panel discussion with a question and answer session.

NEMI's Board Assembly & Substrates Technology Integration Groups (TIGs) have scheduled a joint "call for participation" meeting on Feb. 24 to launch two new collaborative efforts: materials and processes for high-frequency products; and substrate surface finishes for lead-free assembly

For a complete schedule of meetings, visit http://www.nemi.org/APEXmtgs_public.pdf.

www.nemi.org

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