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News

MADISON, AL -- STI Electronics, a provider of EMS, training and lab services, plans to break ground soon on a 53,000 sq. ft. building near the company's current location outside Huntsville.

President David Raby told Circuits Assembly the company hopes to move into the new building before 2008.

STI has two SMT lines and offers a host of training programs to industry standards, as well as extensive lab and analysis capabilities.

Ed.: This story was updated Oct. 16. The original story reported that ground had been broken.

BEDFORDSHIRE, UK -- Jaltek Group and Connect Systems International last week signed an agreement to cross-market and manufacture electronics products.

Jaltek offers design and prototype services, while Connect Systems has 19 high-volume SMT lines in plants Europe in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

Connect Systems is a member of the IPTE Group, which recently acquired and integrated EMS provider Barco Manufacturing Services Division. It reported fiscal 2006 sales of 170 million euros and employs about 1,700 workers.

Jaltek employs 90 staff across its sites in Bedfordshire, and Wokingham, Berkshire.

NORTHFIELD, IL -- Fewer owners and managers of small manufacturing companies during the third quarter expressed confidence in their business prospects for the next 12 months, the Small Business Research Board reported today. Forty-five percent expect revenues to increase during the next 12 months, a seven point decline sequentially.

SACRAMENTO -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday vetoed a bill that proposed to significantly expand the RoHS statutes mandated by the California Waste Recycling Act.

DALLAS, TX – Integrated Test Corp., manufacturer of automated test equipment for PCBs, has expanded its presence in Asia with a sales and applications office in Taiwan.

This location will service the Pacific Rim, other Asian companies, and offshore operations of existing U.S. customers, Integrated Test says.

FRANKLIN, MA – Speedline Technologies will offer a free Webinar on stencil design and its role in defect reduction and process cycle time improvement.

The Webinar will take place Nov. 15 at 11 a.m. EST.

Areas of discussion will include an overview of the printing process, basics of stencil design, and the impact of design on defect reduction and cycle time. In addition, several “real world” stencil designs successful in eliminating manufacturing defects will be discussed.

To register, visit www.speedlinetech.com/seminars.

LOHJA, FINLAND — An Elcoteq subsidiary today signed a deal to sell its manufacturing facility here to Sponda Kiinteistörahasto for 6.3 million euros. The transaction will be executed as a real estate deal, with ownership being transferred from the subsidiary, Kiinteistö Oy Piiharju, to Sponda by Oct. 31.

INDIANAPOLIS – Specialty Coating Systems has completed its acquisition of Parylene Japan K.K.

The deal was finalized Sept. 14.

SCS will do business in Japan as Parylene Japan Inc. (Nihon Parylene Kabushiki Gaisha) and will continue to be led by president Eddie Narita.

The 10,000 sq.-ft. Tokyo facility is ISO 9001:2000 certified and includes two Class 10K cleanrooms.

PJKK, a joint venture between SCS and Three Bond Co. Ltd., was established in 1990 to provide Parylene conformal coating services and technologies in Japan.

ORLANDO – Celestica Inc. was honored with three awards from the SMTA this week in Orlando. The awards recognize Celestica's technology leadership and contribution to the SMTA's technical education and collaboration initiatives.

Celestica was presented with the SMTA Corporate Partnership Award in recognition of its support of the association's global technical and certification programs. Celestica is the only company to have won the award twice.

Engineering principal Jeff Kennedy accepted the Founders Award for contributions to the industry and the SMTA. Since joining the SMTA in 1988, Kennedy has been a local chapter driver and has been involved in national SMTA conferences as a speaker and chairman. He also launched and chaired the association's Medical Electronics Conference during its first two years.

Heather McCormick, process development engineering advisor, received an award for the Best International Paper of the 2006 conference proceedings. The award recognized “Mixing Metallurgy: Reliability of Tin-silver-copper (SAC) Balled Area Array Packages Assembled Using Tin-lead (SnPB) Solder.” The paper was written by McCormick and co-authors Simin Bagheri, Polina Snugovsky, Craig Hamilton, Zohreh Bagheri, George Riccitelli and Ramesh Mohabir.

BANGALORE – Cookson Electronics will open a state-of-the-art research center here later this month. The 32,000 sq. ft. facility will aid semiconductor and alternative energy research, and help boost Asian sales, which currently make up 60% of the company's assembly materials business.

CANJAN, FRANCE – Electronics manufacturer Flextronics intends to close its Canjan plant in the French region of Aquitaine, the company says.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – The gloom and doom in the housing market may have a major impact on consumer purchasing of LCD TVs and computer monitors during the holiday season, according to iSuppli Corp.

Concerns are rising regarding the sub prime mess, the turmoil surrounding the financial markets and how these issues will impact business and consumer spending in the U.S., the research firm says. Rising defaults on U.S. home loans may limit consumers’ disposable spending during the holiday period this year, iSuppli adds.

“While LCD panel suppliers expect prices to increase for the remainder of 2007 due to supply tightness, iSuppli believes inventory increases will result in softness in panel demand among end-product makers and channel participants, especially in the monitor market,” said Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research at iSuppli. “This may affect fourth-quarter pricing of large-sized panels. The issue could become more of a problem if consumers stop spending and tighten their purse strings because of the mortgage problems in the fourth quarter.”

From April through September, LCD makers raised the prices of products at a 15 to 25% rate for notebook and monitor panels, and a 5 to 7% rate for 32-inch and smaller TV panels, reports iSuppli. However, branded vendors are being forced into price cuts to move inventory. The North American market is the biggest cause for concern right now because of the tumultuous economic atmosphere. However, the ramifications of this will be felt among the Asian manufacturers and the global supply chain, the firm states.

In addition, while long-term demand for notebook panels is still positive, notebook production may be impacted as a result of component shortages, says iSuppli. Notebook panel production also may be impacted as manufacturing capacity for these displays is diverted to fast-growing small- to medium-size applications such as digital photo frames, personal navigation devices, car TVs and ultra-mobile PCs.

Panel suppliers Innolux, CPT and AUO are planning to shift more of their fourth and 4.5-generation capacity in some of their fabs to small- and medium-sized panels, says iSuppli. Some are even planning to use some fifth-generation capacity for those size panels. Notebook panel prices increased by between 1 and 2% in September compared to August, the company notes.

iSuppi predicts actual notebook PC shipments in the second half of the year will fall short of expectations because of component shortages. Besides LCD panels, notebook PC manufacturers are reporting shortages of ICs, batteries, optical drives and PCBs. Many notebook PC suppliers said they expected these component shortages to last until October, while others are concerned that they may continue through the end of the year. If notebook PC production is indeed impacted by this component shortage throughout the remainder of 2007, it will impact panel demand, adding to the overall uneasiness being felt in the LCD industry, says iSuppli.