Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

SAN FRANCISCO -- Predicted growth rates for IT are at their lowest point since November 2003, according to the latest poll of the nation's CIOs.

Spending growth rates for the next 12 months fell to 4.8% in May, down from 7.9% last month, according to the monthly poll taken by CIO magazine. Spending projections in all categories fell month-over-month, except outsourced IT services.

Menlo Park, CA - OK International, which over the past few years has acquired several leading producers of benchtop assembly systems, is consolidating those product lines under the OK International name, the company said today.

In a statement, the company said that the Metcal, Techcon Systems and Impell lines of workbench products would now be sold under the OK International brand.

SALT LAKE CITY -- CirTran Corp. today announced outside investors have poured $3.75 million in cash into the contract electronics manufacturer's operations in a move that also cut interest payments by more than half.

CirTran issued a $3.75 million convertible debenture to Highgate House Funds, Ltd., a New York investment group. CirTran used the funds to retire separate notes of $1.7 million and $565,000, respectively.

CirTran gained a net cash of $1.24 million, which will be used to fund its operations in the U.S. and China," founder and president Iehab J. Hawatmeh said in a press statement.

CirTran will also save $254,000 -- 57% -- in annual interest payments.

Last week, CirTran reported EBITDA of $26,518 and positive shareholder equity for the first quarter of fiscal 2005.

PHOENIX -- Suntron Corp. is out of compliance with Nasdaq Stock Market rules for continued listing for failure to maintain a minimum market value of publicly held shares of $5 million for 30 consecutive trading days, the company said.

Suntron, a contract assembler, has until Aug. 22 to comply; failure to do so will lead to delisting of the company's common stock.

Suntron said it is evaluating its options.

TEMPE, AZ - New orders and backlogs for manufacturers grew for the 24th straight month in May - the longest stretch of growth in 16 years. But the rate of growth is losing momentum, according to the latest Institute for Supply Management figures, released this morning. The PMI measure of economic activity fell for the sixth straight, slipping 1.9 points sequentially to 51.4%, its lowest point since June 2003.

For the month new orders and backlogs were down 2.0 points and production slid 1.8 points. Inventories at manufacturers ticked down, but customer stock levels jumped six points.

TORONTO -- Celestica Inc. was named 2005 EMS (electronics manufacturing services) Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan consulting company. The award recognizes Celestica's success in its market diversification strategy; year-over-year revenue growth; technology leadership; and strategic global footprint.

"By working closely with its customers, Celestica has been successful in anticipating their needs and providing them with cost-effective and innovative services that deliver competitive advantage," said Vikram Shanbhag, a senior research analyst at F&S. "Celestica has also successfully diversified its end markets and implemented operational improvement initiatives that have improved revenue growth. This makes Celestica a deserving recipient of the 2005 EMS Company of the Year Award from Frost & Sullivan."

According to a press release, Celestica was chosen based on the following achievements:

* Strong y-o-y revenue growth: For fiscal 2004, revenue increased 31% over 2003.

* Technology leadership: Celestica offers a suite of Green Services to help OEMs comply with emerging environmental legislation, including RoHS and WEEE.

* Strategic global footprint: Celestica is rebalancing its global footprint.

* Diversifying end-market strategy: Celestica expanded into the aerospace and defense, automotive and industrial markets, boasting 152% growth over 2003. The acquisition of Manufacturers Services Ltd (MSL), which closed in 2004, enhanced this progress.

Rome, NY -- The ESD Association's annual symposium on electrical overstress (EOS) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) will be held in Anaheim, CA, from Sept. 11-16. The EOS/ESD Symposium is a week of tutorials, technical sessions, workshops and exhibits.

Over 20 tutorials present a range of topics, including: ESD basics for program managers, ESD on-chip protection in advanced and RF technologies, air ionization, EOS/ESD failure models and mechanisms, in-plant ESD survey and evaluation measurements, and CDM design and characterization. A S20.20 seminar on developing and implementing an ESD control program is also offered. Many tutorials earn credit for professional certification programs: ESD Certified Professional-Device/Design and ESD Certified Professional-Program Manager.

Technical sessions offer over 50 presentations from international authors. Papers address issues in categories such as on-chip RF, on-chip physics/modeling, system-level ESD, factory and materials, and on-chip CMOS.

This year's workshops include topics such as ESD control and design for extremely sensitive devices; automated equipment, ESD and grounding issues; ESD auditing; and silicon technology scaling and ESD reliability.

A featured speaker Kenneth E. Goodson, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, will present "Advanced Thermal Modeling of Transistors" on Sept. 13.

Exhibits are open to the public and do not require symposium registration.

The ESD Association offers discounts for association members, students and early registration (deadline is July 29). For more info: www.esda.org/symposia.html.

DES PLAINES, IL —Kester will host a lead-free seminar titled, "Project 2005: Achieving Lead-free RoHS Assembly" on June 16 in Minneapolis, MN.

The seminar does not concentrate on specific consumer applications. It will present the various complexities of assemblies and what your company needs to do to comply with the European WEEE and RoHS Directives.

The seminar will address key lead-free assembly issues and give you technical, practical information to transition in a timely fashion so your company can maintain reliability and production yields.

This seminar will also tackle the needs expressed by companies as they transition to both lead-free assembly and implementation of the RoHS directive. It addresses the new standards that will assist a company towards a smooth transition.

Eight hours of presentation, ideas and discussion will cover the following topics: 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.

Attendees will receive a lead-free assembly technical manual, white papers and a subscription to the Lead-Free Connection Newsletter.

For information on the technical content of seminar, contact Peter Biocca at (972) 390-1197 or pbiocca@kester.com; for registration details, visit www.kester.com.

ATLANTA — PBR Seminars today announced the premier broadcast of Smart Selling - The Tune-up Every Sales Department Needs, a two-hour Webinar on improving the selling process.

The webinar takes place June 23 at 1 pm Eastern.

Smart Selling focuses on the entire selling process, with an emphasis on effectively building a sales force capable of identifying, securing and supporting the right business in even the most difficult and challenging market conditions. Presented by electronics industry sales veterans Dale Baird, vice president of sales, Lenthor Engineering, and Dan Beaulieu, co-founder, D.B. Management Group, the webinar provides a framework for identifying and getting the right customer.

In a press release, Barry Matties of PBR Seminars said, "Knowing the critical truths about your business, products, prospects and core competencies are vital components in ‘smart selling.' This Webinar can help the beginning salesperson to the most seasoned professional evaluate their total selling strategy and then choose and implement the right selling tools. In today's market, success is not just about making sales, it's about making the right sales."

Registration for the two-hour event, which will include a Q&A session, is $99 and is available online at pbrseminars.com.

PBR Seminars, a joint venture between UP Media Group and PCB007, produces live and on-demand technical Webinars for the PCB industry.

Menlo Park, CA - OK International has hired Paul Brackell as global product manager for conduction soldering and array package rework. Brackell has already initiated a worldwide program aimed at supporting users of conduction and convection soldering and rework equipment as they make their final transition to lead-free production.

He currently heads an international team, including two market development managers, a product support manager for conduction and convection soldering products and an application engineering specialist.

Brackell explained: "The 2006 deadline for lead-free production has led the market to re-evaluate its production processes and capabilities. From a product perspective, our soldering technology delivers the thermal performance customers need for lead-free, right now, and we are also in the process of launching new products targeting lead-free rework."

NEW YORK -- The New York Stock Exchange has notified Three-Five Systems that the company has fallen below continued listing requirements and could be delisted later this year.

TFS, an electronics manufacturing services provider, has failed to maintain an average market capitalization of more than $50 million over a 30-trading-day period and stockholders' equity of $50 million or more, per NYSE regulations.

FRAMINGHAM, MA - Worldwide server revenue grew 5.3% year-over-year to $12.1 billion in the first quarter, the eighth consecutive quarter of growth, research firm IDC said today.

Volume server revenue grew 15.6% year-over-year and continues to represent the primary growth engine for the server market overall. Revenue for midrange enterprise servers grew 6.1%, the second consecutive quarterly increase in that segment. IDC believes this may reflect increased IT spending to run more scalable workloads and consolidation initiatives than can be deployed onto volume servers.

Conversely, the high-end enterprise server market, which grew from the fourth quarter of 2003 through the third quarter of 2004, declined 13.9% year-over-year, its second consecutive quarter of reduced spending. One factor in this drop could be continued price compression, which reduces average sales prices for servers from the high-end enterprise into the midrange enterprise space.

"While the market is not accelerating at the same pace that it did in 2004, IT spending remained strong in the first quarter as customers continued to invest in new infrastructure," said Matt Eastwood, program vice president of worldwide server research at IDC. "Although scale-out computing continues to gain favor with customers for an increasing variety of workloads, increased spending for midrange enterprise systems indicates that other form factors continue to be attractive for large, monolithic applications and for consolidation workloads."

IBM held on to its top ranking as HP moved into a statistical tie in the worldwide server systems market with 28.3% and 27.6% factory revenue share, respectively.
Dell and Sun tied for third place in factory revenue with 10.8% and 9.9% share ,respectively. This is the third consecutive quarter that Dell and Sun have been within one point of market share as Dell experienced 16.6% year-over-year revenue growth while Sun's revenues increased 2.7% when compared to 1Q04.
In terms of unit shipments, HP maintained its number 1 position worldwide with 30.4% server shipment share. Dell maintained the number 2 spot in terms of worldwide server shipments with 24.5% share, growing shipments 17.4% compared to 1Q04.

Although demand for x86 servers continued to be strong, growth has moderated. Factory revenue grew 13.2% to nearly $5.8 billion worldwide while unit shipments grew 14.2% to nearly 1.5 million servers worldwide. Dell, HP, Fujitsu/FSC and Sun all outpaced the category's growth rate, posting year-over-year revenue growth in excess of 15%.

"The volume ramp of x86-64 servers continued in the first quarter, on a worldwide basis. HP was able to leverage the ramp of its AMD Opteron-based servers to become the only tier 1 vendor in the lucrative 4-way x86 server segment to grow revenue year-over-year," said John Humphreys, research manager of IDC's Global Enterprise Server Solutions. "The gain in 4-way x86-64 servers indicates that enterprises see strong performance and scalability benefits from Opteron-based systems in their data centers."

The server blade market showed continued growth in the quarter, with shipments increasing 68.2% over a year ago and factory revenue gaining 106% year-over-year. Overall, bladed servers accounted for $409 million in the first quarter, representing 3.4% of quarterly server market revenue. IBM maintained the No. 1 spot in the server blade market with 39.2% share, while HP maintained the No. 2 position with 35.2% share. Dell was able to increase its share of the blade market to 9.4% in Q1.