Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

SAN CLEMENTE, CA -- Test and inspection OEM YESTech has opened a sales and tech support branch in Alton, Hampshire, UK.

The office will provide service to YESTech's European representatives and customers. YESTech Europe handles most European countries, the Middle East and South Africa.

"YESTech prides itself on its exceptional level of customer support and in providing local help with applications," commented Don Miller, YESTech president. "Adding further backup within the European time zone is another example of this continued commitment to bring all of our support capability to a local focus, world wide."

NEW YORK -- Dover Corp. last night said it discontinued seven businesses during its just-ended quarter, including five from Dover Technologies and one from Dover Electronics. The discontinued businesses include Universal Instruments, Hover-Davis, Vitronics Soltec and Alphasem.

DEK, the screen printer OEM, and Everett-Charles Technologies, the semiconductor and PCB test unit, and OK International were not among those companies put on the block.

In 2005, the five businesses had combined revenue of $580.2 million and earnings of $26.7 million. To-date this year the companies have joint earnings of $9.3 million on sales of $291.8 million.

BINGHAMTON, NY -- Universal Instruments and Hover-Davis are about to be acquired, the companies said today in a press statement.

Without identifying the potential buyer, the companies said the prospective owners "are established businesses with strong track records in technology markets."

FREMONT, CA -- Three men robbed about $200,000 worth of flash memory cards from a local software company last Friday, police said yesterday.

The crime echoes an incident that took place recently in nearby Milpitas.

In the Friday incident, an Ampro Systems employee was in the company parking lot with nine boxes of computer memory cards he was about to unload. Two men accosted him, and stashed the boxes in a getaway car driven by a third man.

The car was identified as a light-blue or gray Chrysler Town and Country minivan with no license plates.

Two days earlier, at an unidentified high-tech business in Milpitas, two men were seen near the freight dock of the company. The men were apparently scared off by employees, police said. That indicident took place about 2:35 p.m. The car was described as a light-blue or gray van, which had the skull and crossbones on the back license plate area.

"They're possibly targeting this county and other counties,'' a police spokesman said.

TAIPEI -- Foxconn Electronics will produce more than one million notebook computers for Sony this year, the majority share on the Japan consumer electronics outsourced PCs.

Asian media source DigiTimes reported sources at Taiwan notebook makers as saying that the electronics manufacturing services provider will produce more than half of Sony's outsourced orders in 2006.

LONDON – The UK Department of Trade and Industry yesterday issued a timetable for implementing the WEEE Directive and “takeback” of electronics products by producers and distributors.

In a so-called Consultation Document, the DTI proposed a national distributor takeback program under which network of designated collection facilities would be established.

Elektrotryck, said to be the largest PCB fabricator in Sweden, has declared bankruptcy. The company said a large increase in orders wasn't enough to avoid the filing.

"To survive through the summer holidays we needed a larger billing that we now have managed therefore we now have to take this step", Elektrotryck's owner and CEO Anders Björsell reportedly told an online journal. "Hopefully a solution can be found that would lead to that the business will continue which would be great for the Swedish industry."

Elektrotryck suppliers telecom equipment to Nordic OEMs. The company is said to supply about 25% of Sweden's bare boards. The company was founded 40- years ago.

MINNEAPOLIS – Sungchul Joo, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology is winner of the 2006 Charles Hutchins Educational Grant.

The SMTA Grant Committee selected Joo for his project, Rapid Prototyping of Micro-Systems Packaging by Data-Driven Chip-First Approach Using Nano-Particle Metal.

Recently his experience has been in chip-first approach, embedded actives, and nano-interconnection, as well as evaluation of nano-particle metal, demonstration of embedded actives packaging, reliability testing at fine pitch, demonstration of data-driven process and rapid prototyping systems.

Joo has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Inha University in Korea, and a master's in mechanical engineering from Yonsei University in Korea.

Joo hopes to work in the field of electronics assembly and packaging. He believes that he can combine his interest in applying creative thought to the electronic packaging field to help create new packages of his own in the future. His goal is to help create smaller and lighter laptop computers, more functional cell phones, and faster desktop computers, leading to increased convenience and comfort to consumers.

The award includes a $5,000 honorarium for the student, plus travel expenses to SMTA International. UP Media Group, parent company of Circuits Assembly, donates $5000 from the proceeds of its Service Excellence Award program toward the grant each year.

This grant was established in memory of past SMTA president and industry colleague Charles Hutchins, who died in May of 1997. For more information, or to make a donation, visit the Hutchins Grant section on smta.org or contact SMTA executive administrator JoAnn Stromberg at 952-920-7682 or joann@smta.org.

http://www.smta.org/hutchins/hutchins.cfm

SAN JOSE -- Flextronics announced today that it has entered into a agreement with Juniper Networks to manufacture the company's security and networking products worth an estimated $350 million in revenue in calendar 2007.

Juniper did not state how the addition of Flextronics will affect its current EMS vendors, which include Plexus and Celestica, which currently split the business evenly.

ANGLETON, TX -- Electronics contract manufacturer Benchmark Electronics today reported sales of $749 million for the June quarter, up 33.5% over last year. Net income was $27.5 million, or up 47% from a year ago.

Benchmark guided for third quarter sales of $710 million and $750 million, and raised its full year guidance to $2.76 billion to $2.85 billion.

GLENVIEW, IL -- The worst kept secret in the industry was made official as Illinois Tool Works has finalized its acquisition of solder-paste supplier Kester Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

NEWTOWN, CT – TUV Rheinland of North America, a provider of compliance testing and certification, is offering North American component manufacturers testing services for European certifications. This includes DIN, EMC testing, ENEC, HAR, and other certifications required by the European Community.

“We are very pleased to be expanding our testing portfolio to include component testing for European certifications,” says Dan Sullivan, division manager, product safety at TUV Rheinland of North America. “Our customers have been asking us to provide these services to help them expand their marketplace into Europe and we are pleased to now be able to help them certify their products for sale in the European Union. This service will help manufacturers with meeting their time-to-market objectives.”