RICHARDSON, TX -- TXP Corp. has expanded its facility by 16,488 sq. ft. to accommodate its newly expanded iPhotonics R&D team following the recent hiring of Siemens' former ONT staff.

The now 47,000 sq. ft. plant includes additional warehouse space and a staging area for the TXP's retrofit business.

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ST. PETERSBURG, FL -- Phoenix X-Ray, a maker of inspection equipment, has opened a service center in St. Petersburg. The company had announced the new site in February.

The site houses the company's 2D and 3D x-ray inspection equipment, and sales, service and applications engineers.

“Our new service center will offer the complete range of excellent consultation, and application services,“ said Dr. Stefan Becker, director of international sales, in a press statement. 

BANGALORE – Brady Corp., a $1 billion OEM of identification equipment and materials, has opened a manufacturing plant at Electronics City in Bangalore.

The plant will make products for use in cellphones and electronics manufacturing.

“The presence in Bangalore allows us to serve our customers better, strengthen key partnerships and extend our reach into the Indian markets,” said Allan Klotsche, Brady vice-president, Asia Pacific region.

WASHINGTON, DC – A task force that includes the National Association of Manufacturers is urging President Bush to include funding for basic research performed by the Department of Defense in his American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI).

“This study illustrates the importance of the Defense Department’s basic research programs to the nation’s economic competitiveness and national security,” said NAM president John Engler.

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By Bob Swiggett

Looking back 58 years to 1948, I recall five things that led me to found Photocircuits Corp., which became the first company in the world to manufacture printed wiring boards as its sole line of business. These five things were as follows:

1. I read a short report written by the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratory describing the “Autosembly” process for electronic assemblies using plastic boards with etched copper foil patterns where the axial lead components were inserted through holes in the board and dip soldered to the foil pattern;
2. I met Russ Davis, a salesman for the National Vulcanized Fibre Co., at the wedding of a friend, who pitched me on what he thought was going to be a great new product, copper foilclad plastic laminate;
3. I worked as a process engineer for Chemco Photoproducts, a company that made plastic film, process cameras, etching, and other equipment for photoengraving printing plates as well as operating three photoengraving plants. We really knew everything about printing and etching processes;
4. RCA had asked one of our plants to try photoetching coils for a new TV tuner using the new NVF copper clad plastic;
5. My boss at Chemco, A. Jay Powers, enthusiastically supported my request to set up a small laboratory and investigate the potential for what just might become a big business.

After visiting the Signal Corps and the National Bureau of Standards, the lab was put together in the cellar of one of Chemco’s buildings in Glen Cove, New York. In the beginning, there was no market and little interest. After World War II, military electronics was ‘dead’. Radio manufacturers claimed that they could handwire a five tube AC/DC set for 35 cents. TV was just coming alive. IBM didn’t have a single vacuum tube in any of its punched card equipment. The computer business hardly existed. Nobody had heard pf the transistor yet.

However, there were customers for complex rotary switches that we could make. Etched inductances such as the RCA tuner coils were interesting to many. We made large quantities of TV antenna filters and couplers, and other products.

Bell Labs came to us for a few small cards that they used to make the first logic circuits wit this new ‘transistor’ to be shown at their threeday symposium in 1950, where they introduced it to the world. It seems quite significant in retrospect that the only way that they could mount and interconnect these devices was on a printed wiring board. Amazingly, at the symposium, I sat next to three guys from a small geodesic test equipment firm from Texas – Texas Instruments. They expressed interest in getting a license.

Our antenna filters used twosided cards where conductors on opposite sides were interconnected by brass eyelets that were soldered. Temperatures on the roof produced open circuits. There was panic! This stimulated violent process development in our lab to produce electroplated holes that would not open. Solving this problem opened the doors to many new applications.

As quantities increased, we developed inks, screen printing machines, etching and electroplating equipment, solder masks, and other products and process tools. Military customers wanted better hightemperature resistance and strength than could be achieved with the early paperbased laminates. We tried many resins, and the best turned out to be a new ‘epoxy’ material in combination with glass cloth. Since the laminators such as NVF had only highpressure presses, they could not, at the time, use epoxy resins. We acquired a small press and began producing materials ourselves.

My brother Jim, fresh out of Princeton, brought order to our production systems, as well as pricing; still, we lost money operating out of a cellar and a garage. Despair set in, and we almost quit.

Then, in a stroke of good fortune, we convinced the Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T., then in technical control of the computers that were used by the SAGE early system, into using twosided plated through-hole boards. IBM, the prime contractor, gave us orders, as well as hope for huge longterm business. Since we were the only company capable at the time of producing plated holes, the Air Force forced us to teach IBM what we knew in order to create a second source. In return, we were guaranteed half the business.

Quitting, and failure, were thus avoided. We built a new 30,000 square foot facility in 1956 and became profitable in the much more efficient layout. The rest is history!

By 1957, several small competitors and captive shops had appeared. Inexperience and lack of uniform specifications led to unfortunate pricing. NEMA proved to be an ineffective answer to the need for a printed wiring board manufacturer’s association. So, we met with Al Hughes of Electrolab at our plant in Glen Cove, and then, by phone, set up a meeting in Chicago with w few other competitors; from that meeting came the organization of the IPC.

This recollection is excerpted from the upcoming book, From Vacuum Tubes to Nanotubes: An Amazing Half Century ­ -- The Emergence of Electronic Circuit Technology 1957-2007, published by IPC. The book will be released in conjunction with the IPC’s 50th anniversary, which will be celebrated at Apex in Los Angeles in February.

BEAVERTON, OR – Axiom Electronics has completed a management buyout of the company from its former parent Ambitech International.

An EMS firm, Axiom operates a 24,000 sq. ft. plant and employs over 70 workers.

In a press statement, Axiom president Robert Toppel said, “Regaining our independence will tap the entrepreneurial spirit of Axiom’s best-in-class staff. We are very excited to be unencumbered from the past and able to facilitate the success and growth of our customers’ business through a combination of strategy, operations and technology prowess, and leadership."

SAN JOSE – The 90-day moving average order for North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment was $1.5 billion in October, up 37% year-over-year but down 9% sequentially, according to the SEMI trade group.

The book-to-bill ratio was 0.95, meaning $95 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average worldwide billings was $1.57 billion, off 6% from revised September figures and up 37 % over October 2005.

In a statement, SEMI president and CEO Stanley T. Myers said, "Orders for semiconductor equipment have declined from the peak levels posted in June, though they are significantly higher than levels reported one year ago. There has been a gradual decline over the past three months, as the industry absorbs new capacity.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers.

SAN JOSE -- Sarantel, a maker of antennas for wireless devices, will outsource production to Sanmina-SCI Corp. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Sanmina-SCI will provide Sarantel with procurement, manufacturing and logistics services from its Singapore facility. Sanmina-SCI is also expected to eventually acquire certain Sarantel manufacturing assets but not its buildings or employees.

Sarantel said the deal will help it cut costs, improve competitiveness and operate in closer proximity to its Asian customers.

"Over time we expect high volume, cost-sensitive products to transfer to Asia while our British plant's focus shifts to new process development, new product introduction and niche market antenna production," said Sarantel chief executive David Wither.

Jerry Rodrigues, executive vice president Asia PCB at Sanmina-SCI, said: "Sarantel operate(s) in high growth markets and have a unique and exciting product offering. The high technical requirements of their product can be supported by our strong manufacturing capabilities. We look forward to working with Sarantel and enabling them to utilize our extensive manufacturing and supply chain solutions."

VANCOUVER -- Moventis Capital, a buyout and growth management company, has closed on its C$7 million acquisition of EMS company PTL Electronics.

PTL has revenues of C$10.2 million and EBITDA of C$1.3 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2006. Over the first two quarters 2007 revenues rose 25% and 36.2%, respectively, year over year.

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Patent Trademark Office has issued Endicott Interconnect Technologies patent no. 7,084,014, describing a method of making a circuitized substrate. 

It brings to 27 the the total U.S patents granted EI since it spun off from IBM four years ago.

The EMS company isn't finished. The Patent Office has also listed applications for the following:

*An electronic package that includes a circuitized substrate having at least two electrical components positioned on it (application no. 20060255460). The package includes patterns of contact sites, each for having one of the components coupled thereto. The patterns of contact sites in turn are electrically interconnected by a grouping of conductive lines which, to substantially prevent skew, are of substantially the same length. The application further describes a method of making the package. The applicant is Irv Memis

* A method of plating a circuit pattern on a substrate (application no. 20060255009). The concept uses a dual step metallurgy application process in combination with a dual step photoresist removal process. Applicants include Norman A. Card, Robert D. Edwards, John J. Konrad, Roy H. Magnuson, Timothy L.  Wells and Michael Wozniak.

* A method of making a circuit board which includes a multiple contiguous open segments along a side edge portion of the at least one electrically conductive layer, with the open segments isolated by a barrier of dielectric material which substantially fills the open segments, e.g., during a lamination process which bonds two dielectric layers of the substrate to the conductive layer (application no. 20060248717). Applicants include John Lauffer, James Larnerd and  Voya Markovich.

EI ranks 13th among the top U.S. PCB companies in revenues, according to Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture. Just three of those companies have more PCB-related patents, however.

The firm’s impressive patent portfolio covers innovative substrate designs and manufacturing processes and is strong evidence of EI’s technical expertise in this very competitive area.

EI’s top 11 patent holders account for over 700 patents, topped by Voya Markovich with 171 and Kostas Papathomas with 154.

“EI is committed to developing new processes, technologies and techniques that enable progress in the electronics industry. This technical leadership has been accomplished through the creativity and invention of our talented personnel,” said James J. McNamara, president and CEO in a press release. “This innovation is a key to EI’s success in the advanced packaging arena and clearly differentiates us from our competitors."

EDITOR: This story was updated on Nov. 30 to correct certain reporting errors.

ANGLETON, TX -- Benchmark Electronics has received U.S. antitrust approval to acquire fellow EMS firm Pemstar Inc..

Following a standard review, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it would allow the deal.

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TOKYO -- Japan's September PCB sales rose 14.4% year-over-year to 85 billion yen, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). Sales were up 3.9% over August.

According to analyst and PCD&M columnist Dominique Numakura, the September data are "an important barometer because they predict consumer electronics spending for the upcoming Christmas holiday."

Year to date, sales are up 16.5% over 2005. Volumes are not showing significant increases, however, which suggests that Japanese manufacturers are shifting to high-end, higher margin products, Numakura said in his weekly newsletter.

Rigid boards shipments rose 13.9% over last year, while flex circuits were up 2.8%.

September revenue of IC substrates fell 5.2% from August but was up 62.3% from 2005. "It is not clear whether this is a small hiccup, or the beginning of a long slowdown," Numakura wrote.