JACKSON, MI -- Electronics manufacturing services provider Sparton Corp. has signed a letter of intent to acquire Astro Instrumentation, a maker of medical test equipment. Strongsville, OH-based Astro is privately owned and had 2005 sales of $33.6 million. The deal is expected to close by June 30 and is subject to due diligence. No financial terms were announced.

Astro designs and manufactures a variety of specialized medical products, including laboratory test equipment. The company operates a 40,000 sq. ft. facility in Ohio.

Sparton will run the business as a wholly-owned subsidiary at its present location and retain current management and staff. The acquisition is subject to the completion of a due diligence review and execution of a definitive purchase agreement.

SAN JOSE -- Solectron Corp. reported a second-quarter profit of $30.4 million, reversing a loss of $2.2 million last year. Revenue fell 10.8% to $2.46 billion from $2.76 billion a year ago, just beating analyst estimates and at the high end of the company's forecast.

For the quarter, the gross profit was $29.7 million, excluding charges and one-time items.

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Clinton, NY -- Indium Corp.’s senior technologist, Dr. Ronald C. Lasky, Ph.D., and Pb-free program manager, Tim Jensen, will present at an SMTA workshop on March 21, in Milpitas, CA. The courses will be “A Protocol for WEEE and RoHS Compliance” and “Best Practices in Implementing PB-Free Assembly: 2006”.
 
Dr. Lasky will also focus on implementing Pb-Free electronics assembly at two additional upcoming conferences:
March 27 at PCB West in Santa Clara, CA
March 29 at SMTA Canada in Toronto
 
At PCB West, Dr. Lasky’s topic will be: “Best Practices in Implementing Lead-Free Assembly, Part 1 and Part 2.” The workshop will focus on how to implement lead-free including PCB finishes, components, alloys and SMT processes. Actual implementation of lead-free processes will be discussed as well as current legislation and practices.
 
At SMTA Canada, the topic will be “Rapid Implementation of Lead-Free and RoHS Compliant Assembly, Declaration and Documentation.” This workshop will provide the information, tools and resources to develop and execute a plan for rapid WEEE and RoHS compliance.

SAN JOSE – North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.3 billion in orders in February on a three-month average basis and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.01 according to SEMI.

A book-to-bill of 1.01 means that $101 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

Bookings were almost 6% higher than revised January levels and almost 27% higher year-over-year.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in February 2006 was $1.29 billion.

Billings grew 2% over revised January levels but fell 3% versus February 2005.

"Increasing booking and billing levels over the past quarter are indicative of healthy growth, as companies are investing more dollars in technology and capacity," said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO. "The book-to-bill has hit parity for the first time since August 2004, so we are optimistic about growth in the equipment market for 2006."

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.