Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Features

SALT LAKE CITY – Northrop Grumman Corp.’s navigation systems division has broken ground on a facility expansion to increase factory output for its commercial, defense and national security customers.

DEER VALLEY, AZ – The Symposium on Avoiding, Detecting, and Preventing Counterfeit Electronic Parts requests abstracts for its west coast show to be held June 8 – 10.

The deadline for abstracts is April 9.

Symposium topics include electronic parts supply chain; sources of counterfeit parts; proven methodologies for reducing chances of being victims of counterfeit parts; supply chain management tools to mitigate counterfeit part risks; inspections tools and techniques for detecting counterfeit parts; authentication techniques for securing electronic part supply chain; trade and business issues adopted by industry, and law enforcement and international cooperation.

The symposium is organized by SMTA in conjunction with Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering/University of Maryland.

Abstracts can be submitted online at http://www.smta.org/education/education.cfm#counterfeit_west.

BEIJING – Electronics and IT in China registered profits of $26.2 billion in 2009, up 5.2% year-over-year, says the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Revenues of the country’s electronics and IT firms were $750.3 billion during the year, up 0.1% compared to 2008.

The industry's export value, however, dropped to $422.7 billion, down 5.6% year-over-year.

Software revenue jumped 25.6% to $139.1 billion compared to the previous year.

Exports and imports fell 12.8% to $771.9 billion last year, the first drop since 2000. Exports for the sector dropped 12.5% to $457.2 billion, accounting for 38% of China’s total.

Imports were $314.7 billion, down 13.5% year-over-year.

BRUSSELS – Changes to China’s chemical regulations have been adopted for 2010, showing marked differences from the May 2009 release.

Among the changes to chemicals in products, the new regulation is applicable to products that release “new chemical substances in their normal use," a statement not mentioned in the 2009 proposal.

Furthermore, the 2010 amendment is one of the few Chinese regulations clearly referring to the GHS standards issued in Oct. 2006. This provides a clear link between law and standards, says Young and Global Partners, which has issued a report on the new regulations.

Third, the chemical classification envisaged in 2009 is gone. Three classifications exist under the 2010 amendment: general new chemicals, hazardous new chemicals, and priority hazardous chemicals.

Also, annual reporting may provide a framework to implement PRTR requirements in China long-term. Reporting requirements have been extended for producers or importers of hazardous new chemicals (including priority hazardous new chemicals).

Many promotional provisions for the development and use of environmentally friendly chemicals are in the update, Young and Global said. The Ministry of Environmental Protection may foresee natural phase-out of hazardous chemicals in China, as it imposes six-month earlier reporting requirements on producers or importers of hazardous new chemicals before it starts a periodic five-year review of chemicals to update the Chinese Inventory of Existing Chemicals.

The Ministry may expect hazardous chemicals to have been phased out in the market, making it needless to put them in the Chinese Inventory of Existing Chemicals.

The 2010 proposal has 25% more regulatory text than the 2009 version.