Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

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).

San Clemente, CA -- YESTech has opened a Singapore office to provide sales, training and technical support to its South East Asia customer base.

The office will provide training and sales for the YTV Series of automated optical inspection (AOI) systems and YTX Series of x-ray inspection systems. The company claims these yield enhancement solutions lower board failure rates and insure a high quality product.

FRAMINGHAM, MA – Investment in IT is beginning to show signs of life, a new study found, based on a survey of over 200 financial institutions.

Financial Insights, an IDC company, estimates that North American capital markets firms are planning to spend a total of $36 billion on technology in 2005 based on current budgets and plans. The firm forecast 5% growth in IT capital buys for the industry.

DALLAS -- Jack Kilby, whose invented the integrated circuit in 1958 and later shared in the Nobel Prize, died Monday of cancer. He was 81.

At Texas Instruments in 1958, Kilby built the first IC into a single piece of semiconducting material half the size of a paper clip. Kilby also co-invented the handheld electronic calculator that made TI a household name.

TORONTO -- SMTC Corp. will build assemblies for Leitch Technology in a deal worth an estimated annualized run rate of $20 million.

SMTC will provide electronics manufacturing services for Leitch, a maker of high-end video systems.

Under the terms of the agreement, SMTC will initially provide complete manufacturing services to Leitch at its new product introduction center in Markham, Ontario, and its facility in Chihuahua, Mexico.

In a statement, SMTC senior vice president of business development Steve Hoffrogge said the "transition ... is well underway, with full roll out of the initial phases expected in the third and fourth quarters of the year."

RICHARDSON, TX – Michael C. Shores, president and chief executive of TXP-Texas Prototypes Inc, was named a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year 2005.

The E&Y program recognizes significant business achievements around the world made possible by the entrepreneurial spirit.

incorporated in 2002 after spinning off from a major EMS company.

Shores, who writes a column on optoelectronics assembly for Circuits Assembly, is a finalist in the Realizing Business Potential category for the Southwest.

Shores was selected by an independent panel of judges comprised of local business, academic and community leaders.

TXP provides prototyping electronics manufacturing services. It was

“The acceptance of our business model has been overwhelming,” said Shores in a statement. “I am proud to be at the head of one of the pre-manufacturing services industry’s fastest growing companies, and very excited about what the future potentially holds."