Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

New Delhi, India -- Taking advantage of the emergence of India as a manufacturing hub, ELCOMP India 2006 international exhibition and conference will be held at the Pragati Maidan exhibition center in New Delhi on Sept. 5-8, 2006. The theme of the conference is “Indian Electronic Hardware & Manufacturing Services Industry: Achieving Global Competitiveness."

Last year’s inaugural exhibition reportedly featured 128 exhibitors from 10 countries, 48 speakers, 232 conference & technical seminar attendees and over 2,000 other attendees. Over 200 exhibitors are expected this year.

The event will be a platform for companies to showcase electronic components, subsystems and equipment to manufacture electronic components, assemblies and products. EMS and design/new technology development services will also be present.

For more information, visit: exhibitionsindia.com/elcomp/elcomp06.html

FRANKLIN, MA – As SMT manufacturing continues to move towards smaller components, it becomes increasingly important to meet fine pitch requirements. With 0201 chips, chip scale packages and microBGAs becoming more prevalent, process engineers must understand every aspect of the fine printing process.

Speedline Technologies will address fine pitch printing in a free, live, Web seminar on Thursday,
Dec. 15, from 11 a.m. to 12 Noon, EST.

Topics will include:
* Squeegee selection
* Solder paste evaluation
* Lead free solder paste printing
* Stencil design, including pin-in-paste
* Aperture design
* 45 degree printing
* Board support
* Fast cycle time printing
* Post-print inspection (2D and 3D)

For more info and to register visit: speedlinetech.com/seminars or call 1-508-541-4749.

ALAMEDA, CA – Chinese companies are moving up the value chain in product design, and their engineering teams offer customers an increasing array of technical options and product features. That’s according to a new report by Technology Forecasters Inc. (techforecasters.com).

Chinese electronics manufacturing and design (EMD) services are forecast to grow 95% from an estimated $38.3 billion in 2005 to $74.7 billion in 2010, TFI found.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The nation's CIOs project IT spending to increase to 6% over the next year, according to a poll taken in November, up one point from October.

Spending projections were up or flat in most categories month over month, said Deustche Bank and CIO magazine, who administer the poll.

EL SEGUNDO, CA -- Intel Corp. is expected to solidify its position as the world’s leading semiconductor supplier, posting the highest revenue growth among the top 10 chip makers for the year, according to a preliminary ranking from iSuppli Corp. The research firm raised its forecast for global chip revenue in 2005 to $237.3 billion, up 4.4% from $227.3 billion in 2004.

TOKYO -- As predicted by Circuits Assembly last year, following its promotion of entertainment guru Howard Stringer Sony Corp. has upped outsourcing of its electronics products. It recently signed a deal with Premier Image Technology of Taiwan, and is reportedly in talks with other Taiwanese companies, including Ability Enterprise Co., Asia Optical Co., and Altek. A decision is expected by March.

Altek also builds product for Kodak and HP. Asia Optical builds for Olympus, and Ability makes digital cameras for Samsung and Casio.

Sanyo is leading digital camera vendor, shipping some 13 million units this year.

PALO ALTO, CA -- The sale of Agilent Technologies' semiconductor chip division to a pair of private equity firms is complete. The $2.6 billion acquisition by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners closed yesterday, creating a new company with some $1.8 billion in revenue this year.

The new company will be known as Avago Technologies and be based in San Jose and Singapore. Avago will have 6,500 employees, including 500 in San Jose. No layoffs are expected.

Dick Chang, who ran Agilent's chip division before the buyout, is the new CEO. He said Avago expects sales to grow about 5% next year.

Avago has also agreed to divest its storage chip business to PMC-Sierra in a deal worth $425 million.

SAN JOSE – Worldwide sales of semiconductors surpassed $20 billion in October, a new milestone for the industry, according to SIA. Sales rose 6.75% from October 2004 and 2.5% sequentially.

WASHINGTON, DC - For the second consecutive month U.S. manufacturing created jobs in November, according to a Dec. 2 employment report from the Labor Department.

"That's the first time that's happened in more than a year," noted National Association of Manufacturers chief economist David Huether.

With 215,000 new non-farm jobs created across all economic sectors last month, Huether observed, "The overall economy's strong underpinnings have helped it weather the Gulf storms that battered employment in September and October. That manufacturing followed up a gain of 15,000 jobs in October with 11,000 more in November suggests that solid growth in orders and production reported earlier this week will keep U.S. industry in its steady recovery mode into next year."

Huether said that as the overall unemployment rate held steady at 5%, U.S. manufacturing boosted employment to 14.27 million workers. "Of course," he added, "we've barely made a dent in recovering the 3 million jobs we lost in the last recession."

While the job gains in October largely reflected a return to work by striking aerospace workers, November's gains were spread throughout most durable goods sectors. "Considering last month's 3.4% rise in durable goods orders, it looks like business investment is accelerating, and that bodes well for additional manufacturing job creation in coming months," Huether said.

WASHINGTON – The National Association of Manufacturers expressed strong disappointment that the latest Treasury Report to Congress did not cite China for currency manipulation. “We felt that Secretary [John] Snow’s comments in May made it very clear that China had to make a significant move in its currency’s value to avoid being cited in this report,” said NAM president John Engler. The yuan has appreciated just 0.3% since China announced a revaluation of its currency in July.

Santa Clara, CA — Landrex Technologies and ZD Test (an affiliate of Zero Defects Int’l) will jointly market, manufacture and distribute both companies’ electrical test fixtures.

Jim Gibson, CEO of Landrex, said, “This relationship will benefit customers in North America and Asia by combining the benefits of lower-cost manufacturing with local technical expertise and support.”

ZD Test, headquartered in Cornelius, OR, manufactures test fixtures used in interconnect and electronic package testing. Its customer base is based mostly in North America. Landrex, headquartered in Taiwan, supplies MDA and ICT test systems and fixtures, functional test systems and fixtures, spring contact probes, fixture kits and components.

SAN FRANCISCO – End-market demand remains relatively healthy, driven by robust growth in handsets, according to a new report from Deutsche Bank.

Following meetings with Flextronics, Jabil, Amphenol and Nam Tai Electronics Inc, the firm announced that “handset demand remains robust, while other high volume programs appear to be trending inline to slightly above plan.”