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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.

MILWAUKIE, OR – ECD has added classes to its free online ECD-University Program.

Profiling A-Z covers how to determine what points to profile (trouble spots, at-risk/sensitive components); thermocouple attachment methods (strategies for success, what to use when); and thermal quality management’s core steps to profiling success (how to generate the oven recipe, how to document the results and build SPC data, and more).

Verification 101 shows how reflow oven verification is a key, yet often missing, stage in any complete thermal quality management program. It will be presented Feb. 23 at 8:00 am PST.

Visit www.ecd.com/ecdu for class schedules and registration information.

ECD manufactures thermal profiling equipment and software.

WOBURN, MA – Two free seminars on advances in limited access testing will be held in March.

Acculogic North American sales manager Bob Steel and application and flying probe product manager Greg Leblonc will present on Mar. 23 in Newton, MA, and Mar. 24 in Farmington, CT.

The seminars present recent advances in testing methodology, including design for test, new boundary scan tools, and flying probe testers.

The seminars are geared toward test engineers challenged with testing boards with little or no access, the need for faster test development cycles and better test coverage. Additionally, they are for those who work with an OEM or in a contract manufacturing environment, or who do production line tests.

Both seminars are sponsored by Acculogic and Precision Automation.

SMYRNA, GA – UP Media Group today announced a trio of electronics industry experts will moderate must-see chats during the third annual VIRTUAL PCB, the industry’s only virtual trade show and conference for the PCB design, fabrication and assembly markets. The two-day worldwide event takes place March 2-4, 2010.

ROSWELL, GA -- Rehm Thermal Systems, a maker of soldering equipment, has moved into a new Applications Center here.

MINNEAPOLIS – The SMTA has announced a series of webinars coming in March to be held in conjunction with Virtual PCB.

Go Greener in Your Cleaner, presented by Dr. Harald Wack at Zestron America, will take place Mar. 3. Attendees will learn about recent cleaning challenges, including the removal of flux residues under challenging low standoff components such as 0603 chip capacitors, while using pH-neutral de-fluxing agents, as well as alkaline chemistries with reduced VOC levels.

Also on Mar. 3, Root Cause Failure Analysis of PCB Assemblies will introduce the element of root cause failure analysis through the correlation of product and tooling design with assembly defects, including examples of actual product design, manufacturing tooling design, and SMT and PTH assembly process issues matched to actual product failures. The presentation will be given by Dale Lee of Plexus Corp.

Status of the Proliferation of Lead-Free Alloys: 2010, on Mar. 4, will provide an overview of the current Pb-free alloy proliferation, a discussion of new failure modes and how to minimize them and an outlook on how alloy convergence might occur. Ronald Lasky, Ph.D., PE, of Indium Corp. will present.

For more information, contact ryan@smta.org or visit http://www.smta.org/education/presentations/presentations.cfm.

Virtual PCB (www.virtual-pcb.com), the industry's only Web-based trade show and conference, is brought to you by CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY and PRINTED CIRCUIT DESIGN & FAB.

ITASCA, IL – Illinois Tool Works reported mixed results for its January quarter, as total operating revenue increased 5% year-over-year, but organic revenues were down 2%.

The growth in revenue was due to acquisitions and currency translation, which contributed 1% and 6%, respectively.

ITW is the parent company of Kester Solder, Speedline Technologies, Vitronics-Soltec and other electronics assembly suppliers.

For the period ended Jan. 31, base revenues were up sequentially on greater demand in the North American automotive sector.

Operating revenues were $3.76 billion, with base revenues down 10.9% in North America and 9% internationally.

ITW said most end-markets have stabilized and expects a modest expansion in a variety of worldwide end markets in 2010, with fiscal first-quarter total revenue growth of 14% to 18%. The company forecasts fiscal year growth of 10% to 14%.

MINNEAPOLIS -- The turnaround at CyberOptics continued in the fourth quarter as the AOI OEM reported net sales rose 5% sequentially and 34% year-over-year.

ANAHEIM, CA – Producing a trade show in the middle of a recession rarely brings out the best in people. Sometimes, it doesn’t bring out the people at all. However, this year, as the recovery starts to settle in, Electronics West brought out a number of EMS firms positive about their 2010 outlooks; some even experienced solid growth in the last three years.