Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

PEACHTREE CITY, GA – The Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA) today opened the show floor to all exhibitors for next year’s PCB East conference and exhibition. Any company that wants to exhibit at PCB East 2024 may now register.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – Current conditions have receded with Shipments Index, Orders Index, and Capacity Utilization Index all weakening in July, but at the same time, the outlook for shipments, orders, and utilization all improved per IPC’s July 2023 Global Sentiment of the Electronics Supply Chain Report.

SAN JOSE, CA – Sanmina saw revenue grow 9% year-on-year to total $2.21 billion in the third quarter of its fiscal year.

TEMPE, AZ – Benchmark Electronics' second-quarter sales of $733.2 million were a 0.7% increase compared to the $728 million in sales a year ago.

GLENVIEW, IL – ITW's Test & Measurement and Electronics segment reported $700 million in revenue in the second quarter, marking a 1.1% increase from the second quarter of 2022.

In a blast from the past, Marc Carter, one of the leading proponents of integrating electronics design and manufacturing technical skills into the educational system, shared a review of the Nepcon West trade show written by the LA Times … in 1986. The flashback is priceless.

Most readers won’t remember Nepcon, but it was the giant of that and any era when it came to electronics manufacturing. It would draw 30,000 to 40,000 engineers and other industry professionals to Anaheim, CA, each February to peruse the 1,000 or so exhibitors from all over the world. It was truly staggering.

The review Carter shared dwelled on surface mount equipment, which was just getting going in the US at the time. (Phil Marcoux, one of PCEA’s advisors, is credited with installing the first such line in the US while running an EMS called AWI in the early 1980s. One of the first SMT boards I’ve seen – or even know of – was used in the early Saturn rockets now on display at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL, and is featured on this month’s cover photo.) Most assembly process equipment then, however, was either through-hole or, if SMT, it was semiautomatic, a far cry from the robot- and software-intensive Industry 4.0-run factories in some regions today.