ENDICOTT, NY – Catalyst Manufacturing Services has acquired certain assets of fellow NY-based EMS provider Ramp Industries. No financial terms of the agreement were disclosed.
 
The combined companies will provide manufacturing of electronic and electro-mechanical assemblies, as well as complex wire harness assembly.
 
Ramp has provided electronic assemblies, system integration and wire harness assemblies to military and industrial customers.
 

ARLINGTON, VA – Electronic component orders bounced back in May after a dip in April, while the 12-month average remains relatively flat, says the Electronic Components Association.
 
The industry remains strong, despite economic problems facing the US. Bill Mitchell, chairman and CEO of Arrow Electronics, said reasons to be optimistic include increasing electronics content pervading consumer’s lives and commerce; $1 trillion in spending in defense and aerospace industries; a 3% growth in lighting each year through 2012, with the LED market tripling in size; $86 billion spent in life-enhancing technologies for health care, and increased spending in transportation to accommodate a growing population and produce new breeds of fuel-efficient vehicles.
 

THIEF RIVER FALLS, MN -- Digi-Key Corp. has announced a global distribution agreement with TriQuint Semiconductor and a separate North America deal with Finisar Corp.

Under the agreements, Digi-Key will supply TriQuint's communications modules and components, and Finisar's pluggable optical modules for datacom and telecommunication applications.

No other terms were announced.

SOLIHULL, UK – Hundreds of workers reportedly walked out of Fujitsu’s electronics factory here to protest plans to move several dozen jobs to the US.

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TOKYO -- Juki Corp. celebrated its 70th anniversary this week by announcing the sale of its 20,000th placement machine.

Just ahead of the Protec trade show, one of the world's largest for assembly, Juki celebrated its December 1938 founding by 900 machine makers located in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The companies formed Tokyo Juki Manufacturers Association in Kokuryo-Cho, Chofu-City, Tokyo. (It was renamed in September 1943.)

The company also announced the donation of 8 million yen to the Chinese government and China Red Cross in the name of the Sichuan earthquake survivors.

Last week at the SMT/Hybrid/Packaging trade show in Nuremburg, Germany, the company sold a reported 10 machines.

Overall, Juki sells more than 200 placement machines each month, president Bob Black reportedly said.

PROVIDENCE, RI – The Rhode Island Senate has passed four recycling bills aimed at reducing the amount of trash disposed in state dumps.

Passage of three of the bills is pending the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee. A fourth, which covers disposal of electronics, is in the House Finance Committee.

The Senate e-waste bill requires manufacturers to take back and recycle household electronics products. A similar House bill is with the state Finance Committee.

 

NEWARK, CA -- Phoenix X-Ray on Friday opened a West Coast demo and customer service center here, its first in the Silicon Valley.

The new site features the company's line of computed tomography (CT) systems for PCB assembly inspection.

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EL SEGUNDO, CA – iSuppli Corp. forecasts the total flexible display market will reach $2.8 billion by 2013, up 35 times from about $80 million in 2007.
 
Flexible displays are being used for a multitude of products, including e-readers/e-paper, electronic display cards, electronic shelf labels, automotive applications, clothing/wearable displays, removable storage devices and point-of-purchase/public signage and advertisements.
 
“Flexible displays are intuitively appealing to end users and product designers because of their ruggedness, thinness, light weight and novelty,” said Jennifer Colegrove, Ph.D., senior analyst for emerging displays at iSuppli. “Such displays also offer manufacturers the potential for inexpensive fabrication because they can be made using new printing methods or roll-to-roll processing. Furthermore, flexible displays have the advantage of easy and relatively inexpensive shipping and safety handling compared to conventional rigid screens. When flexible displays break, they don’t have any sharp edges that can cause injuries or further damage.”
 
Before this year, there were no active matrix flexible displays that could provide the kind of image quality that users expect from their LCD-TVs and PC monitors, says iSuppli. Because of this, 2008 represents “Year One” for the AM flexible display market.
 
More than a dozen display technologies can be made into flexible screens, including traditional LCD, bi-stable LCD, OLED, electrophoretic, electrochromic and Electroluminescent.

 LIMERICK, IRELAND – The deadline is approaching to register for iNEMI’s European workshop for the 2009 Roadmap, scheduled for June 18 at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium. The European workshop is the second of three being held worldwide to solicit industry input and feedback. (The third is scheduled for July 28, in Shanghai.)

iNEMI (International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) is an industry-led consortium and its roadmap, published every two years, is a key part of the organization’s strategy for identifying and closing technology and infrastructure gaps within the electronics manufacturing supply chain. The iNEMI roadmap has become recognized as an important tool for defining the state-of-the-art in the electronics industry as well as identifying emerging and disruptive technologies. It helps set priorities for research and development over the next 10 years, and is not only used by industry but also by government agencies that fund technology R&D and university-based research programs.

The workshops give participants an “in-progress” look at information from drafts of key roadmap chapters. They also allow industry to provide important input and feedback, making sure that the final roadmap addresses global issues and areas of concern.

While many industry roadmaps focus on one particular segment or technology area, such as semiconductors or substrates, the iNEMI roadmap takes a system approach and covers the many technologies and infrastructure areas required for electronics manufacturing. The 2009 Roadmap will cover five product sectors and 22 technology and business process areas.

The European workshop will include the following topics:
· Medical product sector.
· Portable/consumer product sector.
· Environmentally conscious electronics.
· Solid state illumination and photovoltaics (new in the 2009 Roadmap).
· Organic and printed electronics.
· Board assembly.
· Final assembly.
· Interconnect substrates – organic and ceramic.
· Packaging.

The registration fee is $300 (waived for iNEMI members, workshop speakers and government officials). This fee covers participation in the workshop, including a continental breakfast, lunch, and a copy of the 2009 iNEMI Roadmap CD when published in March 2009.

The registration deadline for the European workshop is June 12. For additional information about, or to register for, the workshop, click here.

MONTREAL -- Electronics manufacturing in the US, Japan and Western Europe accounted for less than half the worldwide output for the first time in 2006 as the migration of volume manufacturing to low labor rate locations continues, according to a new report.

Although the Asia-Pacific, and China in particular, has been the main beneficiary, Central and Eastern Europe, Mexico and Brazil have also benefited from significant investment, Electronics.ca Publications found. In the longer-term, Many of today's low-cost locations will also offer significant market opportunities, creating the need for further investment in local manufacturing. 

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NEWARK, NY -- EMS provider IEC Electronics Corp. has completed the acquisition of Val-U-Tech Corp., a privately held manufacturer of wire harness assemblies located in Victor, NY, for approximately $10 million.

For the period ended Dec. 31, Val-U-Tech had revenue of $11 million and expects that its revenue for the six months ending June 30 will be approximately $6.9 million, up from $4.4 million last year.

Val-U-Tech serves military, medical and industrial customers and IEC believes the acquisition leverages the existing customer base of both companies and could lead to cross-selling opportunities.

IEC financed the transaction with a credit facility from M&T Bank, seller notes and issuance of stock. IEC fixed approximately $7.2 million of the purchase price at a weighted average of 5.1% for five years. The balance of the purchase price came from the issuance of 500,000 shares of IEC stock and a draw on IEC’s working capital line.

M&T Bank has provided a $1.5 million equipment line of credit and is supporting IEC’s working capital requirements with a $9 million revolving credit line at LIBOR rates. 

IEC chairman and CEO W. Barry Gilbert said, "Val-U-Tech has been very successful in growing both its sales and earnings at double digit rates for the last few years. Some of IEC’s customers have anticipated cable harness projects to be awarded over the next year. With Val-U-Tech’s management team and IEC’s support we are reasonably confident of winning our share of these programs. This acquisition should significantly contribute to our earnings.”