ST. LOUIS – LaBarge Inc. has been awarded a $1.7 million contract from Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to continue to provide printed circuit card assemblies for various models of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

The award extends the firm’s involvement in the program through January 2010.

Production is taking place at LaBarge’s Tulsa facility.

SAN FRANCISCO – SEMI anticipates global semiconductor equipment sales of $34 billion in 2008, down 20% year-over-year.

Survey respondents see the equipment market growing 13% in 2009 to $38.6 billion, and reaching just more than $41 billion by 2010.

China will hold steady in terms of equipment spending this year, but all other markets will be down from their 2007 levels, says SEMI. Taiwan, the largest equipment market last year, will drop 37% to $6.7 billion in 2008, but is forecasted to bounce back next year with 53% growth. North America will decline 13% to $5.7 billion, according to the forecast.

Wafer processing equipment will fall 20.5% to $25 billion, says the firm. The market for test equipment is expected to decline 20% to just over $4 billion this year, while the assembly and packaging equipment segment will fall 14% to $2.4 billion.

Since the semiconductor business has become a consumer-driven industry, it needs to handle short-run, rapid-change products to accommodate the short lifecycles of the consumer market; smaller fabs are better suited for this, according to SEMI.

R&D dollars for device shrinks, new processes and new materials are highly constrained and must be invested where they will offer a positive return, the firm adds.

The change to a larger wafer size in itself does not lead to significantly reduced costs. Intel found this was the case in the changeover from 150 mm to 200 mm, and the same will be true in going to 450 mm. Overall cost reductions for 300 mm wafers were brought about by higher usage of factory automation, the use of mini-environments or FOUPs, and savings brought on by stopping work on 200 mm node advancement, says SEMI.

Separately, in the keynote at Semicon West today, Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said one of the hottest end-product markets is mobile communications, SEMI points out.

The global handset market has reached about 1.2 billion units and is expected to grow to 1.6 billion by 2012. Entry level phones – those selling round $20 – will grow at the fastest rate, accounting for about half the handset total by 2012, according to Clifford.

The entry-level phone market is being driven by demand in China and India, and the market will continue to grow as those consumers move up the ladder to more feature rich phones, he said. He said currently there are about 800 million people in rural China who are not serviced by mobile phones – and each month 5 to 7 million phone subscribers are added in China.

In India’s market, the price of handsets has come down from $99 to around $22, giving millions of people access to information via the Internet, said Clifford. 

AESCH, SWITZERLAND – Manufacturer of SMT production equipment, Essemtec has increased its production capacity and office space by more than 1220 sq. meters.

The new two-story building contains an FLX and CSM production department on the ground floor.

Approximately every two years, Essemtec has increased its headquarters’ production space here.

 
 
 

STAMFORD, CT – Gartner Inc. reported semiconductor sales would grow in the second quarter, reaching about $65 billion, up 2% sequentially and 8% year-over-year.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – Shipments of LCD-TVs to Southeast Asia are expected to rise by more than a factor of eight from 2007 to 2012, as a result of falling prices, increased user awareness, economic strength and rising consumer affluence in the region, according to iSuppli Corp.

LCD-TV shipments to the region will rise to 13.5 million units in 2012, expanding at a CAGR of 53.9% from 2007. LCD-TV shipments in the region will hit the $6.3 billion mark by 2012, rising at a CAGR of 38.6%.

CRT-TVs continue to dominate the market in Southeast Asia as a result of their lower prices. However, by 2011, LCD-TVs will take a commanding lead in overall television sales as their prices decline, the firm says.

“These economies appear to be weathering the impact of the economic slowdown better than other regions,” said Riddhi Patel, principal analyst, television systems for iSuppli.

“Because of this, more consumers in the region now are able to afford to replace their CRT-TVs with more expensive LCD-TVs, particularly at the larger sizes. While these televisions are mostly being purchased by the affluent and the upper middle class, increased domestic production in the region – which should help lower prices, raise the profile of the product and boost adoption – will encourage more consumers to buy a new LCD-TV set.”

The more mature markets, like Singapore and Macau, along with the emerging countries—Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Brunei—are not growing as quickly as Vietnam, Thailand or Malaysia. However, as prices fall, interest is likely to increase in the more developed areas as well, Patel noted.

The Southeast Asian television market is outgrowing the global business, with unit shipments expected to rise at a CAGR of 6% during the period from 2008 to 2012. In contrast, worldwide shipments will increase by 5% and total Asia/Pacific shipments will increase by 3% during the same period, says iSuppli.

MINNEAPOLIS – EMS firm HEI Inc. returned to a profit in its third quarter as net sales rose 14.6%.

For the period ended May 31, the company reported net sales of $10.2 million and net income of $179,000. A year ago, HEI had a net loss of $1.8 million.

SMYRNA, GA – UP Media Group, parent company of Circuits Assembly and Printed Circuit Design & Fab, announced today that “Unlocking the Myths of Heating Technology: A Practical Tutorial,” a one-hour free Webinar, will be held July 31 at 11 a.m. PDT, 2 p.m. EDT and 6 p.m. GMT.

MILTON, NY – Sono-Tek Corp. (sono-tek.com) named to its representatives network SRS and Associates (stonesrs.com) for TN, MS, AL and GA; Murray A. Percival Co. (murraypercival.com) for MI, IN, OH and KY; Technical Marketing Co. (technicalmarketingcompany.com) for MT, WY, UT and CO; Restronics (restronics.com/florida.html) for FL; and Cope Assembly Products for VA, WV, NC and SC. Bennett Bruntil will head the newly restructured organization.

The reps will handle Sono-Tek's solder recovery line of products. There are no announced changes to the company's spray fluxing products reps.