ST. LOUIS – LaBarge has received a $4.3 million order from Modular Mining Systems to build electronics assemblies used in mine information management systems. LaBarge will provide printed circuit boards and box-level assemblies for central data collection and communications used in heavy equipment. LaBarge will manufacture the assemblies at its Pittsburgh facility. Production is expected to begin this month and continue through January.
MINNEAPOLIS – Rich Freiberger received the SMTA Founder’s Award last month, the organization’s highest individual honor. SMTA presented the award, given for exceptional service to the association and the industry, on Sept. 29 during its annual SMTAI conference in Rosemont, IL.
An SMTA director from 1995 through 2001, Freiberger oversaw the Academy program, EAE (Electronics Assembly Expo), Emerging Technologies, and the Philadelphia, Boston and Dallas SMTA chapters. He was instrumental in assisting the association with the reformation of the Silicon Valley chapter. The Founders Award was one of five citations issued during the conference.
Kim Hyland received the Member of Distinction Award. Hyland has been a member of SMTA since 1987. He is a Silicon Valley SMTA Technical Program coordinator, SMTA Technical Committee member, iNEMI Technical Committee member and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo University industry liaison.
The Excellence in Leadership Award was presented to Tom O’Connor. O’Connor has been a member of the SMTA since 1990 and is currently president of the Capital chapter.
Dr. Charles E. Bauer received the Excellence in International Leadership Award for his continuous commitment to the association’s international focus. Dr. Bauer served on the SMTA board from 1995 to 2001 as vice president of communications and as a planning committee member. He is founder and general chair of the SMTA Pan Pacific Microelectronics Symposium and Chairman of the International Development Committee. Dr. Bauer was also chapter president of the SMTA/IMAPS Rocky Mountain chapter.
The 2006 SMTA+ Corporate Partnership Award was presented to Flextronics. Flextronics has been a corporate member of SMTA since 1999 and has supported SMTA technical programming. Over the years, they have provided the association with numerous participants in SMTA conferences in more than 60 different capacities (speaker, chair, panelist) presenting high quality technical information at conferences around the world.
AUSTIN, TX – Flip chip and wafer-level package sales grow more than 24% compounded from 2005 to 2010, according to a new study from TechSearch International.
In the report, the research firm found that performance and form factor continue to drive flip chip. Flip chip interconnect is expanding into high performance logic to a variety of devices found in wireless products. An increasing number of suppliers of ASICs, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), DSPs, chipsets, graphics, and microprocessors are expanding their use of flip chip in package (FCIP).
EL SEGUNDO, CA - China's slowing electronics industry growth is leading to reduced demand for semiconductors, prompting iSuppli Corp. to trim its revenue forecast for chips sold in China in 2006.
iSuppli currently expects China's 2006 semiconductor revenue to rise between 11% and 15%, which translates to $41 billion and $43 billion for the year. That’s down from the firm’s projection of 18% one year ago.
CAMBRIDGE, UK – Active RFID is said to be growing, with several applications already more than $100 million, and is responsible for more than 20% of all spent on RFID. Leading the way: The U.S. military.
New IDTechEx research indicates that the value of sales of active systems will rocket from $550 million in 2006 to $6.78 billion in 2016.
FORT WASHINGTON, PA – Kulicke & Soffa will acquire Alphasem, supplier of die bonder equipment, from Dover Technologies for $30 million, subject to a working capital adjustment. The acquisition is expected to close around Nov. 3, K&S said today.
In a statement, vice president Christian Rheault, called the acquisition “a natural extension of K&S’s core equipment business into die bonding equipment. The die bonding process precedes the wire bonding step in semiconductor chip manufacturing, and normally utilizes adjacent floor space and a common engineering team. This supplier consolidation will enhance our ability to provide solutions to our customers across a greater span of the semiconductor assembly process.”
The die bonder market was $520 million in 2005, according to VLSI Research. Dover put Alphasem and several other business units on the block in July.