Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

HERNDON, VA, Jan. 3 — The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative consortium today changed its name to the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, or iNEMI.

"As a member-driven organization, we evolve to meet the demands of the changing industry landscape, which means our focus is becoming more global," says Jim McElroy, executive director and CEO, in a press statement. "[W]e have chosen a new name that retains some of our hard-earned brand recognition while signaling our move to a broader geographic scope."

McElroy said the iNEMI board has consistently guided the consortium toward a more global perspective. The organization opened its membership to all North American companies in 1996 and in 2004 actively recruited international participation in several activities.

Furthermore, the 2004 iNEMI technology roadmap marked the first time the group actively recruited participation from Asia and Europe.

The consortium has also revised its bylaws amd meeting structure to incorporate companies in Asia and Europe.

LONDON, Jan. 4 -- A new study launched by a U.K. electronics association will compare manufacturing yields of similar sized electronics manufacturers.

The PPM Project, sponsored by SMART Group and the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, seeks to measure defect levels of tin/lead and lead-free assemblies. The groups will use parts per million defective as the main metric. Companies across Europe will be included in the study, which will be based on existing product acceptability methods to ensure results can be easily compared.

In a press statement, the groups said that "a common question is, How does my process compare with other companies' in terms of yield? The information did not exist or was not easily available to small and medium volume companies until the launch of the project."

IPC and IEC standards will be used to support the PPM evaluation, the groups said.

The PPM Project is part of LeadOut, an effort to inform and prepare electronics manufacturers for lead-free products. Results will be available from the LeadOut Website soon. For more information contact technical@smartgroup.org.

HERZLIA, Israel, Jan. 4 -- UGS, a supplier of of product lifecycle management software and services, will buy Tecnomatix Technologies, a supplier of manufacturing operations software, in a deal valued at $227.7 million. Closing is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter 2005.

The agreement is subject to approval by Tecnomatix shareholders and regulatory authorities.

Under the terms, Tecnomatix shareholders will receive $17 per share in cash, a premium of 39% over Tecnomatix's average closing price over the last 60 trading days.

Tecnomatix's board has unanimously approved the deal.

BANNOCKBURN, IL, Jan. 3 -- The November 90-day moving average shipments of all types of circuit boards 2004 rose 4.1% year-on-year, according to the latest poll of U.S. PCB fabricators. Bookings slumped 27%, however, due to seasonality and intense competition from Asian manufacturers.

The domestic book-to-bill ratio was 0.96, down from 1.05 in October. November marked the first time the indicator dropped below 1.0 since April 2003, said IPC, which tracks the data.

The ratio is based on data collected by IPC from rigid and flex producers and is calculated by dividing three months worth of orders by sales. A ratio over 1.0 is considered an indicator of rising demand.

Separately, the ratios were 0.88 for rigid PCBs and 1.28 for flexible circuits.

Despite the November dropoff, rigid boards, which are estimated to make up about 82% of all domestic PCBs, are showing some improvement. Year-on-year rigid shipments are up 17.8% and bookings are up 8%, while flexible shipments have grown 72.5% and bookings are up 88.7%.

Combined, shipments and bookings are up 28.5% and 24.8%, respectively, this year. Sequentially, shipments dropped 5.2% and bookings fell 23.3%.

Flex sales include some value-added services in addition to the bare flex circuits.

In a statement, IPC cautioned that month-to-month comparisons should be made with caution as they may reflect cyclical effects.

PLAINVIEW, NY, Dec. 27 -- Aeroflex Inc. said today it received $13.6 million in radio test set orders from the Army, Army National Guard and the Air Force.

Beginning in May, the company will start shipping the sets over a 14-month period.

The order brings the company's military communications orders to $22 million for fiscal 2005. The company booked about $414.1 million in sales in 2004.

Areoflex makes testing and microelectronic products for the aerospace, defense and communications markets.

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 23 -- SMTA International 2004 today announced the recipients of its top awards.

Chrys Shea of Cookson Electronics won for Best of Conference, Alan Donaldson, Intel Corp., won Best of Proceedings, and Lars Boettcher, Fraunhofer IZM Berlin, won Best International Paper.

The awards are chosed by attendees and recipients win $1,000.

Shea was awarded Best of Conference Paper for "Optimizing Stencil Design for Lead-free SMT Processing." The paper identifies optimized stencil aperture geometries and explores the lower spread of lead-free alloys on some alternate surface finishes.

Donaldson's paper, "Hot Air Lead-free Rework of BGA Packages and Sockets," presents rework profiles and a process developed based on actual package reliability tests.

Boettcher's paper, "Development of 3D-Redistribution and Balling Technologies for Fabrication of Vertical Power Devices," which reveeals the development of a 3-D wafer-level redistribution process based on fully additive metal deposition.

The SMTA is seeking papers for its 2005 conference in September. Abstracts will be accepted through Feb. 7 at www.smta.org/smtai/call_for_papers.cfm.