Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

ATLANTA – Registration for PCB Austin 2008 is now open at www.pcbshows.com/austin.

Scheduled for Mar. 4-6 at the Wingate by Wyndham & Conference Center in Round Rock, TX, PCB Austin will feature PCB design and fabrication experts teaching full and half-day courses.

Scheduled speakers include Cadence Design Systems, Doug Brooks, Happy Holden, National Instruments, Susy Webb and Wayne Pulliam. Course topics include signal integrity, HDI, designing for the Asian fabrication market, PCB design basics and BGA routing.

PCB Austin 2008 consists of three days of targeted conference courses; a one-day tabletop exhibition; several free technical presentations, and an evening reception on the show floor sponsored by National Instruments.

Part of the PCB Shows family of conferences, PCB Austin 2008 is produced by UP Media Group, parent company of Circuits Assembly and Printed Circuit Design & Fab.

For more information, visit www.pcbshows.com/austin.

PCB Shows are the premier conferences and exhibitions for PCB engineering, design and manufacture professionals. PCB East (www.pcbeast.com) and PCB West (www.pcbwest.com) are annual showcases for emerging technologies used in the design and manufacture of PCBs, programmable logic devices (PLDs), multichip modules (MCMs), high-density interconnect (HDI), flexible circuits and related technologies.

For additional information, visit www.pcbshows.com.

BANNOCKBURN, IL— The IPC has formally urged the European Commission not to change the RoHS Directive, and to hold any proposed changes until their technical feasibility can be reviewed.

ARLINGTON, VA -- Just months after splitting from its former parent, the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association will merge with the Information Technology Association of America, the associations announced.

The merger will bring together nearly 400 technology companies to focus on public
policy, business development, technology standards and market intelligence under the
ITAA banner. The merger is set to close on or about April 1.

Until last year, the GEIA was part of the EIA.

“We are creating a single place for companies to come together and move the technology
industry forward, whether those firms are focused on the government or commercial
markets; IT or electronics,” said ITAA chairman Henry Steininger, in a statement.

GEIA’s membership and programs will become a new group within ITAA. GEIA’s current board of directors will continue to oversee the activities of the GEIA group.

The ITAA board will be adjusted to provide equal representation of ITAA and GEIA
members.

Former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Phil Bond will continue to serve as president and chief executive of the combined organization. GEIA president Dan Heinemeier becomes executive vice president and chief operating officer of ITAA.

KALMAR, SWEDEN -- Hoping to expand its business in Europe, Ethertronics has acquired Flextronics' design center here for an undisclosed sum.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – A new report on silicon-on-chip and system-in-package integration identifies embedded components as a key emerging technology in component and product miniaturization. The research, by Prismark Partners, looks at the impact of miniaturization on the supply chain and how it drives certain technology and business shifts.

TOYKO – Expanded significantly from last year’s edition, Nepcon World Tokyo used both the massive East and West Halls at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center, in part to accommodate the arrival of a major fiber optics wing. Even better: The halls were packed with visitors all three days.

SAN JOSE – North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers saw orders slip 18% year-over-year in December, the SEMI trade group said today.

For the month, manufacturers posted $1.23 billion in orders, up 9% over November.

TRENTON, NJ -- The governor of New Jersey this week signed a law banning electronics devices from state garbage cans and landfills after Jan. 1, 2009.

NATICK, MA -- Machine vision equipment OEM Cognex Corp. has named Dr. Makoto Inoue president of Cognex K.K., the company’s Japanese subsidiary, responsible for sales, marketing, engineering and technical support in Japan. He will oversee five offices and more than 100 employees.

He replaces Hiro Ohgusu, who joined Cognex in 1990 and who remains on Cognex K. K.'s board of directors.

He reports to Eric Ceyrolle, executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

Dr. Inoue spent the previous 30 years with Komatsu Ltd., a manufacturer of industrial machinery and equipment, most recently as CEO and president of Komatsu Electronics Inc.

WASHINGTON – National Association of Manufacturers’ president and CEO John Engler called this week's National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commissions’ recommendations for funding the nation’s infrastructure network an “excellent platform to begin discussing how to improve the U.S. transportation system.”

After nearly two years of nationwide hearings, the 12-member commission issued the report analyzing the needs of U.S. surface infrastructure over the next 30 years. The report offered recommendations to address urban congestion, rural access, project delivery and freight needs.

“Modernizing our nation’s infrastructure system is a top priority of manufacturers,” Engler said. “We depend on the ability to move goods throughout the country efficiently yet face transportation bottlenecks that cost industry nearly $8 billion a year.

"The commission reached a consensus on the clear need to increase investment in our nation’s transportation system to lessen these bottlenecks,” he said. “While there are bound to be differences among commissioners over the level or source of funding, these differences do not diminish the compelling case for additional investment.”

Congress will begin discussing reauthorizing funding for the surface transportation program this week with Chairman James Oberstar’s (D-MN) hearing on this report in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

“Congress should look at mix of investment sources from all levels of government – federal and state – as well as public-private partnerships,” Engler said. “The time is now to work together to find a solution to this complex problem,” he said. “The U.S. will soon be facing a competitive disadvantage if we don’t develop a national plan to improve the quality of our infrastructure system like our international trading partners.”

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission’s recommendations are available at transportationfortomorrow.org.

MULINO, OR – Sunstone Circuits has released a factory certified add-on that enforces the PWB manufacturer's capabilities interactively inside CadSoft’s Eagle PCB Layout tool.

“With the DFM Add-On, Eagle PCB users can now design with more confidence that their PCB will be manufacturable,” said Sunstone CEO Terry Heilman in a statement.

The add-on leverages the CadSoft's design rule checking engine with a complement of Sunstone-specific rules. The tool, Sunstone says, will help eliminate errors early in the design process and cut the time to build a design.

The Sunstone add-on is offered as a complimentary service and can be downloaded at sunstone.com/pcb-resources/Downloads.aspx or cadsoft.de/download.htm (in the miscellaneous downloads section).

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA -- Flextronics is in negotiations to construct a plant here, and a deal could be in place by next month, according to published reports.

CNews, citing the local department for economic development, said the EMS firm plans to invest up to $50 million in the facility, which would build TVs, monitors and laptops.