SMYRNA, GA – PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB today announced it is accepting entries for its Fall 2011 New Product Introduction Award (NPI) for printed circuit board design software suppliers.

HONG KONG -- Surface Mount Technology (Holdings) Ltd. has named a restructuring advisor to aid with its debt and corporate restructuring.

CRANSTON, RI – AIM has promoted David Suraski to executive vice president, assembly materials division. 

Suraski will be responsible for all commercial activities of the division worldwide. He will work with R&D, technical support, operations and finance.

Suraski joined AIM in 1997 and relocated to China in 2006 to manage AIM’s Asian operations. He will return to the US in June to assume his new role in Rhode Island.

REHOBOTH, MA -- New findings reveal demonstrable flaws in the reports by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA Engineering and Safety Center on unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles.

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency said it would suspend the 2011 submission period for the Toxic Substances Controls Act's Inventory Update Reporting.

The decision came as a result of complaints from the chemical industry and House Republicans. The suspension also makes it possible for the EPA to finalize proposed changes and avoid changes being finalized in the middle of the reporting period, say published reports.

Companies are required to file a report for each chemical found on the TSCA Inventory list that they process, import or manufacture. The EPA proposed changes in 2010 that would increase the information required to be reported, the frequency of reports to every four years, instead of five, and the number of firms involved in the process.

ARLINGTON, VA – Memory technology for mobile devices will be featured at three Mobile Memory Forum events hosted by Jedec, taking place in Shenzhen on June 20; Hsinchu, Taiwan on June 22; and Seoul on June 24.

The series will highlight developments and standards for mobile memory, focusing on four technologies with major impact potential for the mobile device market: universal flash storage, LPDDR3, WideIO and solid state drives.

The LPDDR3 standard is designed to meet the higher bandwidth requirements of next-generation smartphones and tablets. The WideIO standard will meet industry demands for increased levels of integration, as well as improved bandwidth, latency, power, weight and form factor, providing performance, energy efficiency and small size for smartphones, tablets, handheld gaming consoles and other high-performance mobile devices. JESD220 is for universal flash storage, designed to be the most advanced specification for both embedded and removable flash memory-based storage in mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. 

To register for the events, visit http://www.jedec.org/events-meetings.

SAN JOSE – North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.6 billion in orders in April (three-month average basis), up 10.8% year-over-year and up 1.1% sequentially, says SEMI.

The book-to-bill ratio was 0.98.

A book-to-bill of 0.98 means $98 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

CHENGDU, CHINA -- Three workers are confirmed dead following a May 20 explosion at Foxconn Technology Group's Chengdu plant.

SANTA CLARA, CA -- Whizz Systems has begun installation at its new contract electronics assembly site in Kulim Hi-Tech Park, Kedah, Malaysia, the company told CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY.

WESTLAKE, OH -- Nordson Corp. turned in another stellar quarter as net income more than doubled from last year to $65 million.

SAN JOSE -- Will Flextronics stay in the outsourced PC market?

SUZHOU -- Rehm Thermal Systems has opened a process development center here to support customers in Asia.