Enthone Inc. (West Haven, CT) has appointed Aaron Storms as managing director of Enthone Latin America. Storms' primary focus will be on developing Enthone's Central and South American businesses, with a special emphasis on the Brazilian market. He will also be responsible for the management of Enthone's Mexico business operations and will be based at the comany's Mexico City facility.

Storms joins Enthone from Crompton Corp., a global specialty chemical company, where he held the dual role of general manager of Mexico and human rescources director for Latin America. Storms previously spent 23 years with Hewlett-Packard, specializing in finance, quality assurance, customer service and human resources.

Enthone, a business of Cookson Electronics, is a supplier of high performance specialty chemicals and coatings used in the electronics and surface finishing industries. Enthone manufactures, markets and distributes its functional, decorative and electronic processes that are used in printed wiring board, semiconductor, automotive, aerospace, jewelry, and hardware and plumbing applications.

Production Solutions Inc. (Poway, CA), a provider of substrate support tooling systems, has appointed of Protec Sales as a manufacturer's representative serving Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Protec Sales, founded in 2003 by Greg Buffaloe, focuses on technical sales and application engineering for its customer base. It is this capability that allows Protec to create and maintain long-term relationships with its large and diverse client base.

Production Solutions manufactures and distributes the Red-E-Set support system for printed circuit board screen printers, dispensing systems and surface-mount pick-and-place equipment.

www.production-solutions.com

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL, Northbrook, IL) and CSA International (Toronto, Ontario, Canda) announced the further expansion of a 1996 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) allowing the free exchange and acceptance of data between the two product testing organizations.

The companies also implemented the second phase of a three-phase, 18-month pilot agreement allowing the mutual acceptance of certain components used in low voltage distribution equipment and industrial control equipment. As part of the second round of negotiations, both parties agreed that a total of at least four follow-up inspections of manufacturers' facilities are necessary for acceptance of components under this agreement.

The agreements, designed to assist manufacturers in getting their products to the Canadian and U.S. markets more quickly, are the result of several months of negotiation between the companies, with support from National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), Electro-Federation Canada (EFC) and major electrical manufacturers.

Based upon a request from NEMA, UL and CSA International have expanded the scope of the MoU to include transfer type switches. Work is also under way to expand the MoU to include the acceptance of high-current capacity short-circuit follow-up test (re-testing) reports conducted on circuit breakers and series-rated circuit breakers. The target date for the completion of this work is Aug. 30, 2004.

Phase two of the components agreement now includes the end products and components from phase one, which have been certified in accordance with Canadian requirements. Phase two also includes the addition of transfer switches and power conversion equipment certified in accordance with Canadian and U.S. requirements.

A complete listing of components and end products covered by the agreements is available on the company Web sites.

Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) is an independent, not-for-profit product safety certification organization that has been testing products for more than 110 years. CSA International is a provider of product testing and certification services for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, gas and a variety of other products.

www.ul.com

www.csa-international.org

The monthly order index compiled by the Electronic Components, Assemblies & Materials Association (ECA, Arlington, VA) continued its steady upward climb in June for the eleventh consecutive month.

"Nothing astronomical is happening," said Bob Willis, ECA president. "Just a nice steady climb over an extended period, which everyone in the industry will take after about a year of no movement and the downward plunge in 2001."

According to the ECA, executives from leading manufacturers say that market growth is not being driven by any single product area, but by steady gains for a range of goods, including digital cameras, flat panel displays, DVDs and car cockpit electronics. Most expect the trend to continue through this year and into next.

The ECA represents manufacturers and producers of passive and active electronic components, component arrays and assemblies and materials and support services. It is a sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), comprising more than 2,100 members that reportedly represent 80% of the $430 billion U.S. electronics industry.

www.ec-central.org

UP Media Group Inc. (Atlanta, GA) and PCB Design Conference West are calling for abstracts for PCB West 2005, which will be held March 7 - 11, 2005, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Sponsored by respected industry trade magazines Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture and Circuits Assembly, PCB West annually provides attendees and vendors with a conference and exhibition for the design and manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCBs), high density interconnect (HDI) and other advanced circuits.

Papers and/or presentations are being sought for the technical conference, based on the following course durations: 30-minute paper sessions, one-hour lectures or panel sessions, two-hour workshops and half-day (3.5 hour) seminars. Papers and/or presentations also are sought for a professional development curriculum of one-day and two-day technical tutorials.

Papers and presentations are sought for, but not limited to, the following topics:

- High speed, high frequency and signal integrity

- Impedance and crosstalk control

- EMI/EMC analysis

- Thermal analysis

- Lead-free processes (especially how they affect design and manufacture)

- RF and microwave

- Packaging and components

- Area arrays

- FPGA design and implementation

- Embedded passives and active devices

- Flexible circuitry

- HDI design and technologies

- PCB design/layout techniques

- Component library creation and management

- Design for manufacture, test and assembly

- Design (including analog, digital and power supplies)

- PCB fabrication

- Soldering

- Surface finishes

- Industry forecasts

- Business and design/supply chain issues

To be considered as a speaker/presenter for PCB West 2005, email to Conference Chair Andy Shaughnessy, ashaughnessy@upmediagroup.com, by August 30, 2004. Your submission should include: a suggested course title, a suggested course length, a short description of your target audience, a detailed 100- to 300-word abstract and a speaker bio.

If selected for PCB West, final papers and/or presentations will be due in early December 2004.

www.pcbwest.com

Vitronics Soltec (Oosterhout, the Netherlands) has announced the schedule for their third annual European seminar tour, "Lead-Free Soldering: How Ready Are You . . . Really?" With the July 1, 2006 deadline for conversion to lead-free soldering rapidly approaching in Europe, this tour is designed to help electronics assemblers accelerate their conversion efforts to be ready and compliant on time.

The 2004 tour is based on Vitronics Soltec's "5 Steps to Lead-Free Soldering" program, includes the company's latest findings and addresses the lead-free process for all three automated soldering processes: reflow, wave and selective soldering.

In the morning sessions, highlights of the "5 Steps" program will be covered, including backward and forward compatibility within lead-free processing, effect of cooling rate on solder joint structure, compatibility of equipment materials with new alloys and many case studies illustrating challenges, pitfalls and success stories drawn from real life.

Other sessions include Success Factors for Lead-Free Wave Soldering, Conversion to Lead-Free Selective Soldering, High Speed Lead-Free Reflow Soldering, Lead-Free Cause and Effects, 5 Steps User Information and an interactive session whereby detailed presentations will be given on topics chosen by the attendees.

The seminar schedule is as follows: