TAIPEI – Hon Hai (Foxconn), the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer, reported March sales rose 52.6% year-over-year to NT$157 million ($4.97 million).

BANNOCKBURN, IL – Jeffrey Kukelhan, Dr. Polina Snugovsky and Jason Bragg, and Arnaud Grivon were winners of the Best Paper awards at IPC Apex this year.

Kukelhan’s “Copper Tin Intermetallic Crystals and Their Role in the Formation of Microbridges between the Leads of Hand Reworked Fine-Pitch Components,” took the US Best Paper honor, and Snugovsky and Bragg won International Best Paper for “Drop Test Performance of a Medium Complexity Lead-Free Board after Assembly and Rework.”

The Celestica paper was coauthored by Russell Brush, Eva Kosiba, Billy Lee, Marianne Romansky, Suthakaran Subramaniam and Michel Thomson, all from Celestica; Andrew Ganster, Crane Division NSWC; William Russell, Raytheon; Dennis Fritz, SAIC; Carol Handwerker, Sc.D., and Jonathan Tucker from Purdue University.

The other International Paper award went to Arnaud Grivon of Thales Corporate Services, for “Industrial PCB Development Using Embedded Passive and Active Discrete Chips Focused on Process and DfR.” Coauthors were Michel Brizoux, Dr. W.C. Maia Filho and E. Monier-Vinard, all from Thales, along with Johannes Stahr and Mike Morianz of AT&S.

Kukelhan is an engineer with BAE Systems. Snugovsky and Bragg are with Celestica, and Grivon is with Thales Corporate Services.

Russell Nowland, Alcatel-Lucent, was presented the US Honorable Mention award for “Telecommunication Case Studies Address Head-in-Pillow Defects and Mitigation through Assembly Process Modifications and Control.” Richard Coyle and Peter Read, both from Alcatel-Lucent, and George Wenger, from the Andrew Division of Commscope, coauthored the paper.        

Nearly 100 papers were submitted for consideration. Papers were evaluated on their technical content, originality, test procedures and data used to deduce conclusions, quality of illustrations and the clarity and professionalism of writing.

The event’s Technical Program Committee selected the winners through a ballot process.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – The industry standard for compliance documentation involving environmental regulations has been updated to include the REACH and China RoHS requirements.

IPC-1752A, Materials Declaration Management, is said to provide an expanded industry-wide reporting format for material declaration data exchange between companies in the electronic interconnect supply chain.

The revised spec has a broader scope to address compliance with additional substance restrictions, including REACH and China RoHS. The new standard is also set up to more efficiently incorporate additional substance restrictions, promulgated through either existing or new regulations.

One shift in the standard is the focus on the definition of the data fields and structure through the XML schema. To improve capabilities with version 2.0, the subcommittee chose to focus efforts on the schema changes and open up any software development to third-party software providers.

The committee has been working with third-party software developers to ensure the development of implementation tools supporting the 1752A materials data exchange. A basic and free open source product developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called Scriba, is a Java-based tool that supports all the major features of IPC-1752A.

While Scriba doesn’t handle database storage, users who need that function can buy commercial software or create their own database management system using XML schema. A handful of software companies have or will soon have programs ready.

IPC-1752A is modular, to facilitate user navigation.

AUSTIN – DisplaySearch today raised its forecast for 3D-capable TV shipments, as hype turns into “real products.”

The research firm said shipments would grow from 2.5 million in 2010 to 27 million sets in 2013, dominated initially by developed regions, with North American shipments accounting for more than half of shipments this year.

“In 2009, we saw the first 3D-capable TVs, with the market greatly accelerating at CES 2010. Now we are seeing the hype turning into real products,” said Paul Gray, director of TV electronics research. “The key issue will be how consumers react to the initial product launch, and what the industry will learn from the feedback of early adopters. Complications in the TV supply chain – especially 3D content shortages – remain the biggest hurdles to overcome.”

The video processing and extra display performance required for 3D remain relatively costly compared to entry-level models, says the research firm. As a result, 3D is constrained by the penetration of double or quadruple frame rate sets in the market.

While 3D is forecast to show rapid growth, DisplaySearch indicates only 27% of 40" or larger sets shipped in 2013 will be 3D-capable. Furthermore, Blu-ray Disc and HD broadcast have low penetration in Western Europe, and as a result, a content gap remains that needs to be filled before 3D can flourish.