Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

The Surface Mount Technology Association (www.smta.org) is again co-locating its annual conference, SMTA International, with the Assembly Tech Expo (ATExpo) show this fall at the Donald Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, from Sept. 26-30.

Dr. Paul T. Vianco of Sandia National Labs has organized a Lead-Free Soldering Symposium that will take place on Thursday, Sept. 30, and will consist of four 90-minute paper sessions on lead-free and tin whiskers consortia activities, materials issues in lead-free soldering, lead-free soldering processes and lead-free soldering reliability. Dial-in options will be available for the symposium during the conference.

In consideration of the current demand for information on lead-free technology, it was decided that the symposium would be an appropriate first attempt at mixing the traditional conference format with an online, dial-in format. Dial-in attendees will receive the technical papers and auxiliary presentation files in advance of the symposium. They will have access to the real-time audio portion by telephone line to follow along as the event takes place.

The dial-in format gives would-be attendees, such as students who might not otherwise be able to attend the conference, an option for taking part.

The cost to dial-in is $195/$255 for SMTA members/non-members. A one-year individual SMTA membership is included in the non-member price.

For more information, visit: www.smta.org/education/presentations/presentations.cfm#smtai_lead-free

Elcoteq Network Corp. (www.elcoteq.com), a global provider of electronics manufacturing services (EMS) for the communications technology industry, has announced its plan to build a new plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. Construction of the 14,700 m² (158,000 sq. ft.) plant is expected to begin in the final quarter of 2004, with operations beginning in the fall of 2005.

When operating at capacity, the plant is expected to employ about 1,500 people. The company's current manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg employs 170 people.

"From 2005 on we will need more production capacity for mobile phones and communications network equipment. This investment program will safeguard our service capability to European customers," said Jukka Jäämaa, executive vice president.

The investment in land and construction will total approximately $18.6 million. The machinery and equipment needed will be determined by the type of products, production volumes and timing of product programs.

Globaltronics, Asia's longest established electronics manufacturing exhibition and conference, will be held again in Singapore from Sept. 7-10. The conference has expanded in scope to cover the four key trends and drivers for the electronics manufacturing industry - wireless, displays, miniaturisation and semiconductor.

32% of research participants, which included buyers and sellers from the electronics manufacturing industry, indicated a preference for Singapore if they were to attend only one major show per year. Singapore's votes were higher than China (18%) and almost three times the votes for Taiwan (11%).

Ng Chuan Yong, vice president, Reed Exhibitions Pte. Ltd., said, "Singapore continues to be an industry hub, known for its quality and high-end manufacturing capabilities. In addition, countries in Southeast Asia are known for being technology savvy and many electronics players leverage the presence of early technology adopters within these markets to test products before global rollout. Singapore is well connected to the whole region to take advantage of this."

Singapore currently manufactures 50% of the world's hard disk drives and has more than 15 established wafer fabrication plants and 30 integrated circuit design houses.

Ng added, "Our research shows that electronics continues to be a significant contributor to the region's GDP. Prior to 2002 and 2003, there were concerns of a migration of electronics manufacturing to China. However, confidence in the region was shaken following SARS and the various bird-flu outbreaks, which had the effect of reminding companies of the old adage ‘not to put all your eggs in the same basket,' and the result has seen the emergence of companies adopting a dual-hub manufacturing strategy."

New to Globaltronics is DESIGNtech Asia, a platform featuring electronic design automation tools and methodologies and design software. It was created to cater to the growing Asia Pacific electronic design automation market (EDM), which is worth $363 million and has grown 23% and 10% in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

Other additions to the exhibition include OPTOelectronics Asia, a showcase of photonics related to the electronics industry; an innovation gallery featuring nanotechnology and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); and a Contract Manufacturers Hall of Fame, a display of Asia contract manufacturers' capabilities.

Activities such as the technology conference, senior executives summit and e-supply chain conference will continue to be features of this year's GlobalTRONICS.

www.globaltronics.com.sg

Specialty Coating Systems (SCS, Indianapolis, IN), a Cookson Electronics Company, has introduced Parylene HTSM conformal coating for the automotive, industrial, military and electronics industries. The coating provides protection to parts and electronic components that operate in harsh environments where temperature, chemical, electrical, moisture and UV stability challenges exist.

The coating meets the specifications of component manufacturers with long-term thermal stability up to 350ºC, with intermittent exposures up to 450ºC. It also offers UV stability, crevice penetration, a low dielectric constant and a low dissipation factor.

It is applied at room temperature via a vapor deposition polymerization process, resulting in a pinhole-free, protective coating. The coating is inert, solvent and catalyst free, does not out-gas, and in ultra-thin coatings results in little dimensional or mass change to the coated component.

www.scscookson.com

Universal Instruments (Binghamton, NY) is bolstering its high-speed chip placement offering with the introduction of the Quadris placement machine. The placer sets out to satisfy the demands of manufacturers who need very high placement rates, high productivity and reliable performance in placing small passives, larger leaded and area array packages or non-standard components.

The hybrid four-beam surface-mount placement system incorporates the advantages of turret-style and overhead gantry technologies. With dual-drive linear motors, it achieves 62,000 cph placement speed within a small footprint.

Reliable operation is achieved via proven turret technology. The machine places small surface-mount device passives and 0201s, while also addressing advanced packages including chip-scale packages (CSPs), ball grid arrays (BGAs), quad flat packs (QFP) and non-standard components with edge length up to 20 mm.

The machine features automatic placement height optimization through on-the-head CCD linear sensors. Patented 12-spindle direct-drive heads have on-the-fly gang recognition. A board transfer system automatically centers the printed circuit board between feeder banks for optimal balancing across the beams. Bank feeder change and splicing capabilities facilitate rapid replenishment and product changeovers.

www.uic.com

DVT Corp. (Duluth, GA) has entered into an agreement to acquire MTI Machine Vision LLC (Providence, RI), a company known for its semiconductor wafer reading algorithms. Under the agreement, DVT is acquiring the rights to MTI's machine vision software products and intellectual property, as well as other related assets.

Bob Steinke, DVT Chairman and CEO, said, "We see this acquisition as an opportunity to combine MTI's algorithm library with DVT's range of smart camera-based, general purpose vision systems."

MTI founders, Drs. Stuart Geman and Donald McClure, noted that MTI's machine vision customers can expect a seamless transition after the acquisition is completed. "The Providence facility will house a DVT technology group dedicated to the development of advanced algorithms and software product development that will benefit both customer bases."

"The acquisition of MTI's machine vision business allows DVT to begin deployment of easy-to-use, smart-camera products featuring MTI software," McClure added.

DVT expects that the first products to benefit from this venture will include semiconductor wafer reading OCR, barcode and 2-D identification algorithms as well as alignment and defect detection software. MTI's solutions for recognizing degraded images and identifying patterns have been adopted by many vision and inspection original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and MTI's success in the semiconductor wafer industry will allow DVT broader access to another machine vision market.

www.dvtsensors.com