Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

TOKYO – JPCA 2007, held amid a minor slowdown in the electronics interconnect industry, must be considered an unqualified success. Between the innovations on display, the incorporation of the Protec assembly show, and real world collaboration, JPCA demonstrated the possibilities of realizing technical advances, and building the foundations for growth while maintaining profitability.

TUMKUR, INDIA -- Incap Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire TVS Electronics Ltd.'s contract manufacturing operations in Tumkur in a deal worth some $10 million.

The deal includes TVS's design services in Bangalore, which will be transferred to Incap Contract Manufacturing Services Pvt. Ltd.

The publicly traded, Oulu, Finland-based Incap had sales of $121 million in 2006 and employs 550 workers. TVS's

FRANKLIN, MA – On July 19, Speedline will offer a free Webcast on stencil printing solder paste for the formation of solder bumps.

This Webinar will review all aspects of the bump printing process including stencil design, solder paste selection, fixturing and printing parameters. In addition, optimization of the related reflow soldering process will be discussed.

The one-hour presentation will start at 11:00 am EST.

To register, go to www.speedlinetech.com/seminars.

EL SEGUNDO, CA – Acer Inc. supplanted rival Lenovo as the world’s third largest PC supplier in the first quarter, according to iSuppli Corp.

Acer also posted the best growth performance among the Top-5 PC suppliers on a year-over-year basis. PC shipments at the Taiwanese company rose 45.8% to 4.2 million units, up from 2.9 million last year.

The company also achieved the largest percentage increase in unit shipments among the Top-5 suppliers in the fourth quarter, posting a 42.7% rise year-over-year. In the fourth quarter, Acer displaced Toshiba for third in worldwide notebook PC market.

Acer and No. 1 Hewlett Packard. were the standouts among the Top-5 PC suppliers, with year-to-year growth rates surpassing those of Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell.

Dell was the only PC OEM among the Top-5 to suffer a decline in units compared to the same period last year. The one-time leader saw units drop 6.8%, to nine million.

Dell’s performance pales against its competitors. During the quarter, collective unit shipments by the Top-5 PC makers increased 14.2% compared to last year, exceeding overall industry growth of 8.7%.

However, Dell announced a plan in the second quarter to sell PCs through Wal-Mart in North America. The company also restored founder Michael Dell to the role of CEO, and added Michael Cannon, the former CEO of Solectron.

Dell’s moves may be bearing fruit, said iSuppli. Although company unit shipments were down 6.8% in the first quarter, the decline was less than the 8.6% decrease in the fourth quarter.

SAN JOSE -- Two of the largest EMS firms in the world will join forces as No. 2 Flextronics International this morning announced it would acquire No. 3 Solectron Corp. for $3.6 billion in cash and stock.

The combined company will have about 200,000 employees and annual revenue of more than $30 billion, ahead of the current market leader, Hon Hai (Foxconn).

SPRINGFIELD, MA -- In the second largest EMS acquisition of the day, Nu Visions Manufacturing and San Francisco-based private equity firm Golden Gate Capital bought Veritek Manufacturing Services for an undisclosed amount.

San Marcos, CA-based Veritek has plants in San Jose and Longmont, CO.

SPOKANE VALLEY, WA – ACE Production Technologies has acquired all Drop-Jet Spray Head technology and its related products from Castle Controls & Automation.

ACE will offer the flux head as an option on its selective soldering products, and will announce standalone and inline fluxing products in the coming months.

No other terms of the agreement were disclosed.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – A top stencil manufacturer has devised a process for eliminating wave soldering.

A recent paper authored by Photo Stencil vice president of technology Dr. Bill Coleman outlines a procedure called intrusive reflow, said to improve Pb-free material printing.

One objective of the study was to maximize the amount of solder paste printed into the through-hole. With proper squeegee speed and squeegee angle, 100% hole fill was achieved for 0.063"-thick boards and 85% hole fill for 0.093" -thick boards with a 0.006"-thick stencil. This reportedly resulted in good top and bottom fillets and continuous solder fill around the pins with a 0.006"-thick stencil for 0.063" and 0.093"-thick boards for resistors, DIPs and four-row header arrays.

X-rays of paste hole fill and cross-sections of through-hole pins after reflow are shown in the paper. To download the paper, visit www.photostencil.com/techpapers.htm.

STAMFORD, CT – Gartner Inc. cut its 2007 worldwide semiconductor forecast to $269.2 billion, a mere 2.5% increase from 2006.

Gartner previously predicted a 2007 revenue increase of 6.4%.

The research firm attributes the negative outlook to dramatic declines in DRAM average selling prices and continued price competition in the compute MPU segment.

Gartner said first quarter semiconductor sales were more than 5% lower than in the previous quarter, which was worse than expected.

The firm said it expects the industry to return to annual growth of 8.7% and 7.2% in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The head of the National Association of Manufacturers commended Chinese and American officials for progress in the latest round of joint economic talks.

NAM president John Engler called the second meeting of the Strategic Economic Dialogue, between Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi, a “breakthrough … in expanding passenger and cargo flights,” and “new cooperation in financing U.S. exports to China, new market access for the financial sector, increased cooperation in energy, and announcements of large purchases of U.S. products.”

Engler also applauded the nonconfrontational methods used by the Treasury Secretary. “This dialogue is all about direct and candid discussions on the opportunities and risks in our relationship,” he said. “Hank Paulson is trying cooperation and consultation rather than confrontation to get the job done, and we support his efforts. But we also need the dialogue to produce results.”

Engler noted the aim of the SED is to bring about structural change. “The Chinese leadership must recognize that the risk now lies in acting too slowly rather than acting too rapidly,” he said. “We are hopeful that the dialogue will result in faster actions by China to move away from export-led growth to domestic-led growth,” he continued.

“We all want to see a mutually beneficial relationship with China – one in which both U.S. and Chinese companies and workers can compete fairly, with assurances that global trade rules will be observed and enforced,” Engler said. “Our economies have a great deal at stake in our trade relationship, and the SED process is the best hope for achieving a win-win outcome.”

BANNOCKBURN, IL – April shipments of rigid PCBs were down 12.8% and bookings were off 11.8% year-over-year, IPC reported today.

Shipments of rigid and flex boards decreased 12% year-over-year, and orders dropped 8.5%. Year to date, shipments are down 9.1% and bookings are down 16.5%. Compared to March, April shipments were down 16.2% and bookings were off 15.3%.

The combined industry book-to-bill ratio in April increased to 1.01, 1.28 for flex boards and 1.0 for rigid.

Year to date, rigid PCB shipments are down 9.9% and bookings are down 18.9%. Sequentially, rigid PCB shipments fell 15.5% and bookings decreased 12.6%.

Flex circuit shipments were up 3% and bookings were up 68.9% compared to April last year. For the year, flex shipments are up 3.9%, bookings 30.1%. Flex shipments fell 25.1% and bookings were down 39.2% versus March.

SHANGHAI – The global semiconductor market is expected to grow 2.3% to $253.5 billion in 2007, according to the spring forecast of the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics group.