Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

Data I/O Corp. (Redmond, WA) announced a net income for the first quarter of 2004 of $296,000 or $0.04 per share, compared to a net income of $317,000, or $0.04 per share, for the first quarter of 2003. Revenues for the quarter were $6.8 million, up 11% from the same period last year.

Gross margins increased by $276,000 in Q1 compared with the same period of 2003, primarily due to the higher sales level and an increase in the aftermarket sales mix. Operating expenses were higher in Q1 this year due to the company's investments in Asia and in a new venture in in-system programming (ISP) under development, as well as the unfavorable currency translation impact of European-based operating costs. The company's lean manufacturing processes continued to show results helping to reduce inventories by $555,000 during the quarter.

Fred Hume, the company's president and chief executive officer, said, "As the geographical center of the electronics manufacturing industry has shifted to Asia, we have redeployed resources to that region and are adding staff locally. This will allow us to service and support our customers there in their time zone. We have also invested in strengthening our sales organization globally in recognition of the improving climate for capital equipment."

During the quarter, the company added Joe Murdica as vice president of sales for the Americas and Asia. The company also formed a new subsidiary in Brazil specifically to support Siemens ICM handset production in Manaus.

www.data-io.com

Advanced Circuits (Aurora, CO), a quick-turn printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer with real-time customer service, announced that it received a Gold Award from the Metro Wastewater Restoration District (MWRD) of Colorado for the second year in a row. Of

1,100 eligible Colorado companies, only 14 received the recognition.

To win the prestigious award, manufacturers must be 100% compliant with MWRD, Colorado Department of Health and Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

Advanced Circuits' pollution prevention and waste minimization efforts include reclaiming metal scrap and waste copper etch solutions and using countercurrent rinses and automated sensors to control rinse water use.

In 2003, the company accelerated its focus on improving work flow and productivity through its metal finishing process operations. It invested in an automated electroless copper plating line and completed the installation of supplemental pretreatment equipment. The additional pretreatment equipment runs in unison with the existing pretreatment setup (though triple its size) and ensures that the increased volume of wastewater generated by increased plant production will meet permit discharge requirements.

"Manufacturing plants, especially PCB shops, have traditionally had a bad reputation as far as their impact on the environment," said Bob Liebsock, Advanced Circuits process engineer. "Advanced Circuits is ever conscious of the need to maintain a dedicated effort towards regulatory compliance and will continue in its steadfast goal to reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible."

The MWRD is a regional organization that provides wholesale wastewater transmission and treatment service to 55 local governments in the Denver metropolitan area. These local governments provide retail wastewater services to approximately 1.5 million people. The MWRD has been recognizing environmentally conscious Colorado companies since 1991.

www.4pcb.com

Omnify Software (Wilmington, MA), a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software for mid-market electronic, medical, mechanical and defense original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Cimmetry Systems (Cambridge, MA), a provider of visualization and collaboration solutions for the A/E/C, engineering, manufacturing and electronics markets, announced a new OEM partnership. Omnify has licensed Cimmetry's AutoVue visualization and collaboration technology to be embedded in the Omnify PLM system.

Cimmetry's technology offers the groups involved in the product development and manufacturing process a single location to view, markup and collaborate on all documents related to the product record.

"Cimmetry's AutoVue is a unique technology for the electrical and mechanical

markets," said Chuck Cimalore, chief technology officer at Omnify. "By supporting 3-D CAD, 2-D CAD and EDA formats, AutoVue covers the complete range of formats necessary to serve today's manufacturers. AutoVue, integrated with our PLM system, delivers enhanced data management and collaboration across the entire extended enterprise."

"Omnify brings to market a full-featured, business-ready PLM solution," said Michael Vidmar, business development manager at Cimmetry. "By embedding AutoVue's MCAD and ECAD visualization capabilities, Omnify PLM bridges that traditional gap between mechanical and electrical departments."

Omnify Software delivers a complete PLM solution for OEMs to manage their part, bill of materials, engineering change and documentation information within a single location. Its PLM features a Web architecture that enables out-of-the box, bi-directional integration with an organization's engineering and enterprise systems, ensuring automatic entry and extraction of information.

www.cimmetry.com

www.omnifysoftware.com

A group of providers of lead-free soldering and assembly will put on a full day of seminar presentations at the Hilton Hotel, Nuremberg, Germany on June16, 2004. The event has been planned close to the nearby SMT Exhibition to allow manufacturing management the opportunity to attend both events.

A representative from Indium Corp. (Utica, NY) and Vahid Goudarzi of Motorola will explain how Motorola implemented lead-free solder in the production of over 10 million cellular phones. The discussion will also cover initial quality and product implementation.

Dr. Ning Cheng Lee and Dr. Ronald Lasky of Indium will also cover topics such as alloy selection and challenges and best practices of implementing lead-free assembly.

A number of other presentations include Hewlett Packard's discussion on implementation onto large boards. Gerjan Diepstraten, Vitronics- Soltec, will discuss lead-free wave soldering and Hans-Juergen Albrecht, Siemens, will cover reliability of lead-free interconnects. Ross Bernston, Indium, will cover the subject of mixed technology in lead-free assembly.

ACB, Peters and KIC will give other presentations. The event is by reservation only.

www.indium.com/quickstart

Ray Prasad Consultancy has announced that a detailed lead-free course will take place on May 17-18, 2004, in Beaverton, OR, presented by Ray Prasad and Dr. Raiyo Aspandiar of Intel.

The course, Lead Free Technology For Electronic Assemblies: Problems and Promises, is led by instructors that have years of hands-on experience in implementing surface-mount and lead free in small and large companies to help identify business and technical issues in lead-free conversion. This is not a theoretical course. Actual Intel case studies will show the pitfalls and successes of lead-free implementation.

In addition to discussing the details of in-house lead free implementation, the course will also show you the questions to should ask your contract manufacturer (CM) if you plan to outsource/off-shore your product. Technical details, including wave and reflow profile development, paste selection, inspection and rework using both conventional and diode laser of lead-free solder joints, will be presented. The course will also give the status of legislation banning lead around the world including Europe, Japan, China and the U.S., and how participants can improve their company's profile and benefit from this disruptive technology.

Engineers and Managers who are either already into lead free or thinking of getting into lead free will benefit from this course. Participants will get an insight into the details of lead-free soldering technology to successfully implement lead free in your process and products.

Prasad will also offer a course on Surface-Mount Technology and Ball Grid Array (BGA) Design and Manufacturing on May 11-14, 2004.

www.rayprasad.com/coursedescs/intensive.html

www.rayprasad.com/course_link.html

phoenix|x-ray Systems + Services Inc. (Camarillo, CA) has introduced beryllium-free targets in all x-ray systems with open tubes. The new targets build on the company's commitment to produce an environmentally safe line of open tube x-ray systems. The new targets eliminate the potential harmful residual effect that can react from x-ray exposure to a beryllium target, resulting in possible operator exposure due to stress of long-term target exposure and or breakage.

The beryllium-free targets provide an advantage to boards and components that have a concern for over exposure and irradiation—such as hi-reel products—because new material used in the targets act as a filter to absorb a portion of the x-ray and minimize potential damages to samples. Combined with the company's low-dose|mode process that only exposes samples for the time that is obligatory to achieve a proper image, test samples will not receive any additional radiation than necessary to complete the inspection. This process and use of a beryllium-free target makes it easy to ensure the trace exposure to various radiations are lessened to ensure long-life operation.

As in space, the applications are on the extremes and require concern for operations in a variety of severe conditions and environments. Since the exposures are cumulative, production, test and inspection of the components and boards must take into consideration all aspects of this exposure during the manufacturing process.

phoenix|x-ray Systems + Services Inc. is the North American sales, service and applications engineering subsidiary of the Germany-based microfocus x-ray system manufacturer, phoenix|x-ray Systems + Services GmbH. This group of companies offers sealed tube and open tube microfocus/nanofocus x-ray systems dedicated to printed circuit board (PCB) assembly, back-end and multilayer inspection applications.

www.phoenix-xray.com