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OAKLAND – Dell has announced it plans to triple the amount of product recovered from customers by the end of 2009 and released its annual sustainability report outlining current progress and future goals for the company’s corporate responsibility efforts.

The company’s environmental design plans were laid out in a new report. Other major goals include:

Introduction of a new supplier audit tool to help ensure good workplace practices throughout the company’s supply chain.
Global compliance with the RoHS directive.
Enhanced product energy efficiency through improvements in product design; and
Tripling the recovery and recycling of retired computers by the end of 2009.

Dell’s annual sustainability report for fiscal year 2006, which ended Feb. 3, outlines the company’s progress on environmental and social measurements and was issued today in conjunction with the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres) conference here.

Major achievements for the company’s recently completed fiscal year include:

· Launch of the company’s first high-volume, RoHS-compliant¹ desktop motherboards. Dell exceeded its goal of shipping three million of these motherboards per quarter by the fourth quarter of 2005.

· Recovery of 36.1 million kgs of product for reuse or recycling from customers and company operations. More than half of this total came from customers, increasing Dell’s recovery of product from customers by 72% over fiscal year 2005 volumes.

· Completion of Dell’s Supplier Self Assessment Questionnaire by 90% of targeted suppliers, exceeding the goal of 50% of target group completing self-assessment.

Earlier this year, Dell issued a chemical-use policy that set forth a plan to phase out the use of all brominated flame retardants in desktop, notebook and server plastic parts. Dell also plans to expand its existing ban on the use of brominated flame retardants in other products and peripherals developed after June 1, 2006.

In 2005 Dell shipped more than 8.4 million RoHS-compliant, Pb-free desktop motherboards.

Dell increased product recovered from customers for reuse or recycling, as measured by weight, by 72% over 2005. Dell has set a target to recover 125 million kilograms cumulatively by the end of 2009, nearly three times as much as Dell recovered this year.

Dell plans to launch customer product recovery services in Latin America and China this year.

A copy of the company’s sustainability report is available at dell.com/sustainabilityreport.

Shanghai -- Assembléon, a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics, and Yamaha IM are extending their pick-and-place partnership for another three years. The agreement covers the global SMD placement market, and includes development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and service.

The cooperation began in 1987, when Assembléon launched the companies' first mutual product, the CSM46. Since then, the partnership has been extended with continuous cooperation.

Together, Assembléon and Yamaha have grown to be the top supplier of pick-and-place machines worldwide in terms of units.

"Together, our two companies have the economies-of-scale and technical expertise that electronics assembly operations worldwide can rely on," added Leon Husson, CEO of Assembléon. "With today's PCBs characterized by continued miniaturization and a widening component mix, the winners in the market will be the manufacturers who can make their machines future proof, while still delivering a cost-down, quality-up process."

SAN JOSE -- Sanmina-SCI andShocking Technologies will jointly develop Shocking's specialty polymers for embedding ESD protection into internal layers of PCBs. The companies will work together to formulate voltage switchable dielectric materials for inclusion in Sanmina-SCI's PCB structures.

VSDM are specialty polymers that instantaneously change from insulators to conductors when a pre-programmed bi-directional voltage is applied.

Shanghai & Santa Ana – At last week’s CPCA show Mason Electronics entered into a distribution contract for their electrical test products for the North American market with Christopher Associates.

Mason is a supplier of universal grid electrical test systems in Asia. Customers include OPC, Multek, Viasystems, Gold Circuits, Hitachi, Samsung, Jabil Circuit. Mason provides hardware, software and fixturing solutions from their ISO 9001 certified manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, as well as facilities throughout Asia.

HOUSTON — BP Microsystems, a supplier of device programming systems, has revamped its Device Programming Language (DPL) algorithm development environment in BPWin. Now, its more than 100 semi-house partners can co-develop and test algorithms for new devices.

The semi-house partners can use a special version of BPWin software for algorithm development, analysis and tests to screen for a specified defect prior to the release of the device.

San Francisco – A March poll of CIOs nationwide predicts an 8.6% growth in IT budgets over the next year, up from 7.8% in December’s poll. Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore added in a research note that spending projections were up in all categories, except security software, which was flat.

Paris – Alcatel yesterday unveiled a planned merger with its smaller U.S. rival Lucent Technologies for $13.4 billion. Together, the pair would have total revenue of $25 billion, roughly matching current industry leader Cisco Systems.

The two companies plan to cut about 10% of their combined workforce, or about 8,800 jobs.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA -- The long-awaited deal for Photocircuits, the Glen Cove, NY, manufacturer of printed circuit boards, was made official Friday with the sale of the company business to a newly formed subsidiary of American Pacific Financial Corp.

AMPAC, a private equity group, purchased the company at auction. No financial details were provided in the announcement, although previous reports indicated the purchase price was around $43 million.

NORCROSS, GA -- Assembléon, the supplier of placement machines, named Leo van de Vall president and chief executive of Assembléon Americas Inc. He replaces Michael Buscher, who founded the American branch several years ago.

The move is effective today. He is based in the company's office outside Atlanta.

HIALEAH, FL -- Electronics contract manufacturer Simclar Inc. reported 2005 revenue of $61.2 million, up 14% from 2004. The net income was $1.3 million, compared to $2.3 million in 2004.

Much of the revenue gain -- 55% -- came via acquisitions; year-on-year sales of preexisting business units rose 6.5%.

Cerritos, CA -- Corelis and Mentor Graphics will host a half-day JTAG seminar in Richardson, TX on Wednesday, April 5.

Topics will include:
Introduction to boundary-scan technology;
Board interconnect testing using boundary-scan;
In-system programming (ISP) of CPLDs, FPGAs and Flash memories;
Automating boundary-scan insertion into ASICs, ICs and cores;
Typical design flow;
Value of automation with BSDArchitect;
Components of boundary-scan insertion;
Integration with other on-chip test methodologies such as scan and MBIST;
Integration with board-level test methodologies.

The seminar is free and intended for ASIC designers, board designers, test engineers and managers who would like to understand JTAG test methodologies. Previous knowledge of boundary-scan technology is not required.

For more information and to register, visit: www.corelis.com/Dallas_Seminar_Invite.htm

HERNDON, VA — iNEMI will hold a workshop for its next technology roadmap on May 17 in Herndon, VA.

“This workshop provides a progress report on the roadmap, and gives industry an advance look at key findings,” said Chuck Richardson, iNEMI staff manager of roadmapping. “It also provides the opportunity for industry feedback — kind of a ‘reality check’ on the conclusions being drawn — and allows mid-course corrections, if necessary. Participants have the advantage of gaining early insight into the anticipated future direction of the electronics industry, and discussions and feedback help us improve the final roadmap report.”