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News

UPPER SAUCON TWP., PA -- Lutron Electronics Co., a manufacturer of lighting control products and systems, will create at least 500 new jobs within five years by expanding its Pennsylvania operations.

Lutron plans to construct a 250,000-sq. ft. office building, and expand its product evaluation building by some 20,000 sq. ft.

PALO ALTO, CA – Despite lower wages and price pressures from overseas competitors, the adoption of Pb-free solder paste has led a resurgence in reflow soldering equipment market sales in North America.

Industry revenues totaled $41.3 million in 2005 and are estimated to reach $68.1 million in 2012, a 3.8% average annual growth rate, Frost & Sullivan said today.

WASHINGTON -- Total spending on electronics or computer-related equipment, such as home computers, laptops, PDAs, or calculators, is estimated to increase by more than $1.5 billion this year, rebounding to $3.82 billion after a sharp decline in 2005.

SAN JOSE – Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $9.59 billion in the second quarter, 0.2% higher than the first quarter and up 27% over a year ago, SEMI reported today. It was the highest mark for billings in more than five years.

Semiconductor equipment bookings reached $11.53 billion, up

SAN JOSE -- The performance potential of high speed, copper based, direct interconnections between IC packages by means of a flexible circuit was validated by Intel Corp. in July at the IEEE CPMT Society's ECTC conference.

A paper, Flex-Circuit Chip-to-Chip Interconnects, was authored by team of scientists and engineers from facilities in Hillsborough, OR, Santa Clara, CA and Chandler, AZ. The authors concluded that “20 Gbps signaling on channels of relevant lengths is possible,” but noted that “we are not ready to introduce flex I/O into any mainstream products.” Even so, they did conclude that “the possibility of a chip-to-chip interconnect with minimal discontinuities and propagation loss is a strong attractor and corresponding high-speed solutions will be in demand.”

“We are delighted with both the quality of the Intel team's research and their reported results” noted SiliconPipe CEO and co-founder Joseph Fjelstad, “These results (20Gbps over extended distance) add significant credibility to SiliconPipe's concepts and validate the results SiliconPipe has presented to the electronics industry over the last few years, most recently in February at DesignCon West.”

SiliconPipe OTT technology (an acronym for Off-the-Top or Over-the-Top) can enable high-speed data requirements and low power potential.

“In our demonstration vehicle, code named Sidewinder, our team showed it possible to send signals at 10 Gbps over distances up to 30 in. through two connectors and do so using less than 2% of the anticipated transmission power while maintaining a 60% timing margin,” Fjelstad said. “However, there is still more benefit to mine and extract in this area and SiliconPipe is continuing to develop and evaluate new copper based interconnection solutions to meet the cost performance needs of future electronics and the Stair Step Package it appears will be an important element of that future.”

SAN JOSE -- The Nasdaq stock exchange has issued a delisting warning to Sanmina-SCI for the EMS firm's failure to file its quarterly 10-Q form.

In response, Sanmina-SCI has requested a hearing before the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel.

Loughborough, England – The U.K. contract electronics group Datalink has acquired MSS/ Manufacturing Support Services, an Arizona contract manufacturer, and its associated electronics assembly company Servicios de Fabricacion based in Nogales, Mexico.

Since the acquisition, the assembly lines have been moved to more appropriate facilities, new surface-mount equipment has been installed, ESD precautions improved and MRP systems updated to manage full turnkey operations and trace ability. RoHS assemblies are now welcomed and ISO 9000 registration is scheduled for first half 2007.

Datalink concentrates on small- to mid-volume, low- to high-mix, through-hole, surface-mount and mixed technology PCB assembly.

VANCOUVER, BC -- Northstar Electronics reported second quarter revenues were down 4.8% to $346,152 versus last year.

For the three months ended June 30, the company incurred a loss of $213,335, up from a loss of $238,743 in 2005. Revenues include government assistance.

Northstar specializes in sonar technology, systems integration and electronics contract manufacturing.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Synova has secured financing of $ 8.1 million, put up largely by Swiss banks, to develop micromachining centers (MMCs) in key high-tech regions worldwide.

The MMCs are designed to fuel adoption of Synova's Laser MicroJet technology. With over 50 full-production machines at 30 different customer sites, the company is committed to developing localized centers to allow quick customer support. With the technology already qualified in the electronics market, the new financing will allow the company to delve into other industries and application areas.

"This funding comes at a pivotal time for Synova," said its chief executive, Bernold Richerzhagen. "Laser MicroJet has experienced phenomenal traction in recent years, and our global expansion efforts are aligned with the market's demand for innovative cutting technology. Our MMCs will allow us to effectively anticipate and serve the needs of our global customer base as we further penetrate not only the semiconductor market, but also burgeoning, precision-centric sectors such as inkjet print-head MEMS, hard disk drives and organic light-emitting diodes."

Last month, Synova announced that its first MMC, located in the Silicon Valley, will open in January 2007. It will feature an applications lab and the most recent Laser MicroJet tool -- the LDS 300 A. Future MMCs, planned to open throughout 2007 and 2008, will house similar tools.

High Wycombe, England -- The U.K.-based SMART Group is hosting three events this fall that center around Pb-free assembly and the RoHS/WEEE legislation.

Troublshooting your Assembly Process + Lead-Free Clinic will take place on Sept. 26 at the Oxfordshire Conference Centre in Thame. The program will look at the practical problems of Pb-free in manufacture and failures in the field, focusing on potential and current issues. Delegates can also bring their own manufacturing issues for free support from the “SMART Lead-Free Advice Clinic;” delegates can also email questions in advance to be answered in “LEADOUT Question Time”.

The next event, a Practical Lead-Free Rework & Repair Workshop, will take place in the same location on Oct. 11. It provides an opportunity to learn different repair procedures and techniques. During the event, each delegate will have a Pb-free board to hand solder or rework with a selection of alloys and inspect to gain first-hand experience.

On Nov. 7, the Wycombe Football Club Conference Centre will host the SMART Group Legislation Update. This event will follow on from RoHS, with what has happened since the July 1 implementation, and look at other legislation challenges, including WEEE, EuP and REACH.

For more info., visit smartgroup.org.

Chicago -- Powell-Mucha Consulting is offering a tutorial on Creating Competitive Advantage in Today’s EMS Market. It will take place on Sept. 28, during the SMTA International conference in Chicago,

“EMS marketers face a lot of challenges: low budgets, prospects with unrealistic cost expectations, competitive issues and cycles of changing technology,” said Susan Mucha, president and tutorial instructor. “But, these challenges have been repeating themselves for decades. This tutorial looks at industry patterns and discusses strategies to overcome both current short-term challenges such as the transition to RoHS compliance and sustaining challenges such as finding adequate budget in a low margin industry. We also dissect the entire EMS value proposition and look at business models appropriate in various industry tiers.”

The tutorial covers five key areas: sources of competitive advantage in EMS services, brand
definition/promotion, lead qualification/mindshare maintenance, packaging EMS services and
account acquisition strategy development.

For more info., visit: smta.org/smtai/tutorials.cfm.

In addition to the tutorial, Powell-Mucha Consulting and Circuits Assembly have jointly organized a Contract Manufacturing Symposium on the morning of Sept. 27. The Symposium features six speakers in two sessions titled: Exploring the Dollars and Sense of EMS and EMS Program Management. For more info. on this session, visit: smta.org/smtai/symposium.cfm#cm

Oyster Bay, NY - - In the past year, the stationary form of WiMAX (fixed WiMAX or 802.16-2004) has seen steady adoption in the marketplace. But the mobile version, 802.16-2005, will be here sooner than many people think, according to ABI Research.

"ABI Research sees fixed WiMAX sales hitting a peak in 2007 and then leveling off," said principal analyst Alan Varghese. "Mobile WiMAX will start to see deployments in 2007, and the crossover point between the two will be late in 2008. Considering that it takes a year to design ASICs and then more time to design them into end-equipment, vendors up and down the value chain need to be discussing the required tradeoffs in their strategy meetings now."

Performance, power consumption and cost requirements for WiMAX ICs become much more challenging on the mobile platform. MIMO will be required, which means increased circuitry, so IC vendors may have to trade off MIMO performance for die area, power usage and price. The ASP for the WiMAX RF is about $15 and for the baseband about $23; the total is more than the BOM for a low-tier device, so considerable cost reduction is needed, ABI says.

According to the research group, WiMAX IC companies such as Beceem Communications and Runcom that went straight to the mobile platform are being shadowed by companies such as Redpine Signals, RF Magic, Sequans, Sierra Monolithics, Telecis and Wavesat, which have honed their skills through deployments in fixed WiMAX. Competition will also come from giants such as Fujitsu and Intel that understand the mobile platform intimately all the way from RF to applications.