SAN JOSE – The Semiconductor Industry Association projects worldwide semiconductor sales will recover in style next year, following a double-digit drop in 2009.

TORONTO – SMTC Corp. today reported third-quarter revenue of $44.2 million, up 13% sequentially. Revenue dropped 16.8% year-over-year.

APPLETON, WI – Contract manufacturer Surface Mount Technology Corp. today announced the release of its proprietary SMART Platform.
 
Scalable Modular Automated Reusable Test is said to be a means for testing low- to mid-volume PCB assemblies without high tooling costs.
 
The platform consists of a set of commercial off-the-shelf USB-based instrumentation, as well as standard software drivers. To develop a test for any assembly, a fixture is developed from a standard fixture kit that interfaces to the SMART platform through a standard set of connectors. The fixture provides probing to the unit under test and connectivity to the instruments in the platform.
 
A test program is created using software libraries that provide an efficient test development environment. The libraries have support for standard tests, user interface development, report generation, troubleshooting and fixture maintenance, and interfacing to data collection facilities for statistical process control.

HERNDON, VA – The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative’s board has recognized Tetsuro Nishimura, president of Nihon Superior, for support of several iNEMI projects. 

iNEMI cited Nihon’s generosity in providing human resources and testing capabilities, as well as financial support, to several of its Pb-free projects.

Specifically, the firm supported the Pb-free wave soldering, Pb-free rework optimization, Pb-free alloy alternatives, Pb-free early failures, and solder paste deposition projects.

Nihon Superior supplies Pb-free soldering materials.

WASHINGTON – Dozens of public interest groups have signed a petition urging President Obama to make more transparent the negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, continuing this week in Korea.
 
That the agreement is being negotiated privately has been a common complaint, and the petition indicates many observers do not feel the steps the Obama administration has taken to provide more information on the agreement have been sufficient.
 
US officials have said the objective of the ACTA negotiations is to create a state-of-the art agreement that will help governments combat more effectively the proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods, which undermines legitimate trade and in some cases contributes to organized crime and exposes consumers to dangerous fake products.
 
The agreement aims to build on existing international IP rights rules, in particular the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and is intended to address enforcement issues where participants have identified an international legal framework does not exist or needs to be strengthened.
 
There has been some concern it could include measures that impose new restrictions on imports and exports of even legitimate goods, require additional documentation at entry, result in more importer audits, and give border officials greater authority to examine, seize and destroy goods thought to be infringing.
 
Trading partners taking part in the talks include Australia, Canada, the EU and its 27 member states, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland.
 
Earlier this year, USTR released a summary of the issues under negotiation, established a dedicated ACTA web page, and vowed to hold town hall meetings to engage with members of the public. More recently USTR broadened its consultations on ACTA to include domestic stakeholders representing a broad range of views and expertise on Internet and digital issues.
 
Nevertheless, the public interest group petition expressed a number of concerns regarding the conduct of the negotiations. For example, the groups found fault with USTR’s policy of “access by invitation and NDA,” which agency officials have said “fully addresses the legitimate demands for more transparency” and “is being considered as a model for the future.” Under this policy, the opportunity to see ACTA documents was offered to a large number of business interests, but only a few public interest or consumer groups, and not to academic experts or the public.
 
The petition asserted this approach “creates a small special class of citizens who have rights superior to the majority of the population” and “gives the government too much discretion in deciding who can monitor and criticize its operations.”
 
The petition also asked proposals for ACTA texts to be “shared with everyone” instead of being limited to government officials and “Washington, DC insiders.” It is “an insult to our intelligence,” the groups said, “to claim that the secrecy of the ACTA text has anything to do with national security concerns, as the term is commonly understood.”

JASPER, IN -- Kimball International reported net sales of $274.7 million and net income of $1.8 million for the period ended Sept. 30.

COLLEGE PARK, MD –The United States Air Force has named DfR Solutions to its Small Business Innovation Research program to study Physics of Failure-based reliability predictions of Pb-free solder.

BANNOCKBURN, IL -- An IPC committee yesterday took to task a California’s agency's proposal to regulate chemistries used in electronics manufacturing and other applications.

MYSLOWICE, POLAND -- EMS company PartnerTech will invest 6 million euros ($9 million) to open a production unit for enclosures and system integration here, the company said.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – A new PCB roadmap outlines the needs for US military contractors over the next few years.

The roadmap is intended to facilitate better communication between the PCB industry, OEMs designing and manufacturing military hardware, the US Department of Defense and the military electronics supply chain. It was developed with input from top military OEMs under the auspices of an IPC task force.

The task force, composed of North American manufacturers, developed the roadmap to assist the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division in identifying technologies, designs and materials that will be required to meet future DoD and OEM needs. Crane has been appointed by the DoD as its PCB Executive Agent.

The IPC Printed Board Defense Roadmap will be released a Dec. 9-10 IPC meeting in Washington, DC.

For more information, visit www.ipc.org/defense-roadmap.

MINNEAPOLIS – EMS provider Nortech Systems Inc. today reported third-quarter net sales of $18.7 million, down 41% year-over-year.

SAN JOSE – Sanmina-SCI today reported a fourth-quarter loss of $32.3 million, compared to a loss of $473.9 million in the same period in 2008.