MINNEAPOLIS, MN - The co-located SMTA International and ATExpo show on Sept 25-29, in Rosemont, IL, will once again feature the Emerging Technologies Summit. The summit is a series of three paper sessions and a panel discussion (moderated bySteve Greathouse of Intel Corp.) addressing the latest trend in electronics manufacturing and assembly.

The first session, Roadmaps, will feature papers on iNEMI's Optoelectronics Roadmap for 2004, Emerging Nanotechnology and Its Effect on Electronics Manufacturing, and Free Silicon Marketing Strategy.

The next session, Turning Lead Into Gold, will feature papers on Gold Bump Technologies, Flip Chip Ultrasonic Gold-to-Gold Interconnect for High Bump Count Devices, Adhesive Flip Chip for Large Arrayed Devices, and Packaging of High-Power LEDs Using Au Studbump Interconnects.

The last session, Advanced Power Technology, will feature papers on mPowerChip: A Solution for Integrated Power for Microsystems and Integration of Active and Passive Components Using Chip in Polymer Technology.

For further details and for event registration, visit smta.org/smtai/

Vienna - AT&S, Europe's largest PCB manufacturer, began construction last week on a second plant in Shanghai. When it comes online in 15 months, the 75,000m² production facility will triple the company's capacity in China.

"The second plant in Shanghai will definitively put us in the position as the most modern high performance printed circuit board manufacturer in the high-tech segment," said Willi Dörflinger, chairman, in a statement. "The new capacity will come just at the right time in the second half of 2006, enabling us to tend to the climbing demand in the HDI microvia area."

The company's step toward Asian expansion takes place exactly four years after the cornerstone was laid for the first plant.

PALO ALTO, CA --Hewlett-Packard, one of the largest customers of the EMS industry (including companies such as Flextronics, Sanmina-SCI, Jabil, Solectron and Celestica) has faced sluggish demand and an inventory reduction, according to its latest earnings call. The company's total revenue slowed to 7% year on year vs. 10% last quarter.

According to Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore, strong (10%) sequential growth from HP's business critical servers offset slowing industry standard server revenue and a 6% decline in storage from last year. The division's operating margin improved to 4.4% vs. 1.8% last year.

HP experienced a rebound in printer demand in the April quarter, with sales up 5% year-on-year following aggressive price cuts. Home hardware sales increased 3%, while business printers grew 4% from last quarter (Flextronics has the most exposure to home hardware sales while Jabil has the most exposure to business printers, DB said).

Revenue from PCs grew 6%, decelerating sharply from last quarter's 11% growth -- as desktop growth fell to 1% from 8%.  The commercial business increased 3%, with a 10% consumer growth (Sanmina-SCI manufactures commercial desktops for HP). 

DB also reported that HP is selling two PC manufacturing plants to Hon Hai in Australia and India.

HP reduced inventory by $656 million and days of inventories to 35 (the lowest level since the second quarter of 2002). Roughly $500 million of the decline was in the printing division.

DB analysts noted that demand remains lackluster and pricing remains aggressive throughout the IT HW industry. In addition, HP's new management team could implement significant changes to its supply chain in an effort to drive lower costs, creating risk to EMS vendors' existing relationships with HP. That said, HP's inventory management meaningfully improved in the quarter.