Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

SUNNYVALE, CA -- The battle of the chip titans is on. Again. Advanced Micro Devices on Monday filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging Intel forces customers into deals that excludes them from buying AMD's components.

In the suit, AMD alleges Intel has given cash and other incentives to companies such as Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Gateway and Hitachi -- 38 companies in all -- in exchange for exclusive deals.

RALEIGH, NC-- Weller, a Cooper Hand Tools brand (cooperhandtools.com), is presenting a series of lead-free soldering seminars to explain this essential technology and to prepare electronics manufacturers for the 2006 deadline for compliance with RoHS directives.

The seminars, presented in association with Omni Training and Techni-Tool, will be held in Cleveland, OH on August 24; Detroit, MI on August 26; and in Cedar Rapids, IA on August 27. Ken Moore, president of Omni Training, will conduct the sessions.

The sessions will cover the impact, challenges and risks associated with lead-free, including thermal-related damage to PWBs and components. The primary focus is on hand soldering, rework and inspection of solder joints made with lead-free alloys. Attendees will work with various lead-free alloys and soldering equipment.

For details contact Maria Eby, (610) 940-5425; mariae@technitool.com.

Irving, TX – EMS provider Elcoteq Network Corp. opens its Engineering Service Center (ESC) in Richardson, TX, today. A ceremony marking the event featured speeches by Richardson mayor Gary Slagel and Elcoteq Americas president Dr. Doug Brenner.

The center occupies 28,117 sq. ft and employs 100 people. Services include project management, prototyping, industrialization, low-volume manufacturing, test services and material management. Products will include mobile networks, broadband access and wireless LAN, and home communications products, as well as board assembly, module and systems for cellular base stations, switches, microwave and broadband access products.

The facility is ISO 9001 certified and RoHS compliant. Capabilities include automated PCB assembly and flip-chip assembly at less than 300 micron pitch, underfill, a lead-free production process, 0201 production placement and rework processes, AOI, BGA replacement and reball, x-ray inspection, mechanical assembly, final build packout service, design for manufacturing and build report documentation, real time quality data collection and an intranet based manufacturing data system.

FRANKLIN, NH – Polyclad Laminates, a business of Cookson Electronics, has published a Lead-free Material Selection Guide. It provides advice for selecting lead-free capable laminate base materials, and defines best practices for determining selection criteria for Pb-free or Pb/Sn assembly applications.

Available for all major Polyclad products, the guide reviews PWB design and assembly variables in making recommendations to use specific laminate and prepreg materials. It will be regularly updated as more data become available.

For an electronic copy, email: polyclad@cooksonelectronics.com.

ATLANTA, GA —UP Media Group Inc. (UPMG) has announced the conference program and event schedule for PCB Design Conference East 2005. The show will celebrate its 10^th anniversary Oct. 10-14 at the Expo Center of New Hampshire, in Manchester.

PCB East features a five-day conference program of targeted Professional Development and Technical Conference courses, plus a keynote address, a variety of free special networking events and a two-day exhibition.

The Welcome Luncheon and Industry Icon Roast on Oct. 10 will be the first special event. The roastee’s name is being kept under wraps but clues will be “leaked” on the show Website during the weeks leading up to the show. Free to all Monday attendees, others may register to attend this plated luncheon event.

An Opening Night Reception, featuring food and drinks, will be held on the show floor on Oct. 12. Book signings by industry authors will be held during the reception and at other times in the PCB East Book Store.

Pub Night at Jillian's, featuring live music by the infamous Porch Dawgs, will provide free pool, darts and shuffleboard, plus food and drinks, at Jillian’s in downtown Manchester.

An Ice Cream Social will be held on the show floor on Oct. 13. Other new events include Dinner With Strangers and Trivia Night.

Registration for the exhibition and most special events is free. The complete conference brochure is available at pcbeast.com.

tLOS ANGELES – What’s the Made in the USA” label worth among today’s consumers?

According to the American Demographics Perception Study, which surveys consumers for opinions on brands and perceptions, the USA tag still holds sway with buyers, although its pull is waning among younger consumers.

DES PLAINES, IL —Kester will continue its lead-free seminar series, “Project 2005: Achieving Lead-free RoHS Assembly,” on July 26 in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

The seminar is designed to assist in the successful transition to lead-free soldering and RoHS compliancy. It will address key lead-free assembly issues and give technical information to transition in a timely fashion.

It will present the various complexities of assemblies and how to comply with the European WEEE and RoHS Directives. This seminar offers complete information and case studies to make these products reliable with lead-free while being RoHS compliant.

Topics will include: lead-free and RoHS directive overview; supply changes and procurement issues; board/component requirements; lead-free alloy selection for SMT, wave and rework; lead-free wave, and SMT process optimization; impact of dual systems; BGA rework practices; hand soldering process changes; lead-free RoHS reliability; field rework and training; and training and documentation.

For more info. on technical content, contact Peter Biocca at (972) 390-1197 or pbiocca@kester.com; for registration details, contact Theresa Rudnick at (847) 699-5580 or visit www.kester.com.

MILPITAS, CA – Solectron Corp. will purchase McDATA Corp.’s Lumberton, NJ, manufacturing operations and assets. The deal is expected to close this week.

McDATA, a provider of storage networking solutions, obtained the operations as part of the company's recent acquisition of CNT.

GREENVILLE, SC -- Kemet Corp., a provider of passive components, will cut 150 jobs, mostly in the U. S., and take a charge against earnings of $4 million in the June quarter.

The restructuring will result in annual savings of approximately $8 million, the company said.

MILPITAS, CA -- Solectron Corp., the world's fourth largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, reported a third-quarter loss of $64.1 million on sales of $2.6 billion.

For the quarter ended May 31, revenue dropped 14%. Last year the company reported net income of $21.4 million on revenues of $3.03 billion.

NEW DEHLI -- Flextronics has narrowed to three its list of possible sites for a new assembly plant in India, local media reported today. The world's largest contract electronics manufacturing firm has settled on Bangalore, Pondicherry and Chennai, according to CyberMedia News.

The report said Flextronics is "currently doing due diligence" for the siting, with details expected "in a couple of weeks."

ATLANTA, GA – Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new technique for cooling high-performance integrated circuits, using microchannels integrated onto the backs of circuits to carry cooling water. The technology could allow denser packaging of chips while providing better temperature control and improved reliability.

The technique includes polymer pipes that will allow electronic and cooling interconnections to be made simultaneously using automated manufacturing processes, without damage to ICs.

“This scheme offers a simple and compact solution to transfer cooling liquid directly into a gigascale integrated (GSI) chip, and is fully compatible with conventional flip-chip packaging,” said Bing Dang, a Graduate research assistant in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “By integrating the cooling microchannels directly into the chip, we can eliminate a lot of the thermal interface issues that are of great concern.”

The approach allows a simple monolithic fabrication of cooling channels directly onto ICs using a CMOS-compatible technique at temperatures of less than 260°C.

In addition to the cooling channels, the researchers have built through-chip holes and polymer pipes that allow the on-chip cooling system to be connected to embedded fluidic channels built into a printed wiring board. The channels can be connected at the same time the IC is connected electronically – using flip-chip bonding – and can withstand pressure of more than 35 pounds per square inch.

The system should be able to cool 100 watts per square centimeter.

Dang expects the technology to be used first in high-performance specialty processors that can justify the cost of the cooling system. So far, the researchers have demonstrated continuous liquid flow on a chip for several hours without failure, but additional testing is still needed to confirm long-term reliability, he added.

By eliminating the large heat sinks and heat spreaders, along with high-aspect ratio fins, the technology could allow denser packaging of integrated circuits, making 3-D packaging feasible.

The technique was presented in June at the IEEE International Interconnect Conference, and a paper will be published next month in the proceedings of ASME InterPACK. The research was sponsored by the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corp. and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).