News
TEMPE, AZ, Jan. 7 -- Three-Five Systems Inc., a provider of electronics manufacturing services, sold its headquarters here in a deal worth more than $11 million.
TFS sold the building, located at 1600 N. Desert Dr., as well as its lease-hold interest in the ground sublease to Papago Paragon Partners, an unaffiliated company.
TFS received $9.35 million in cash plus a $2 million promissory note. The deal closed Dec. 30.
PHOENIX, Jan. 5 -- EMS provider Suntron Corp. has signed a five-year lease to expand its footprint in Mexico as more business migrates to lower-cost regions.
The company said it will expand its plant in Tijuana to 110,000 sq. ft. The plant is currently 35,000 sq. ft.
"This expansion is critical to being able to continue to provide world class service in a low cost region as we continue to migrate more and more of our customers' high labor content products to our Tijuana facility," said Jim Bass, president and CEO, in a statement.
ANGLETON, TX, Jan. 6 -- Benchmark Electronics Inc. today reaffirmed fourth quarter revenue targets of $505 million to $530 million, with corresponding diluted earnings per share of $0.41 to $0.45. The guidance is in line with analysts' consensus of revenues of $521.6 million and earnings per share of $0.44, and at the upper end of guidance provided Oct. 21.
Benchmark will announce fourth-quarter results on Feb. 8.
SAN JOSE, Jan. 6 -- Three-Five Systems has deployed product lifecycle management software from Agile Softwareacross its worldwide electronics manufacturing sites, Agile said today.
In a press release, TFS said the software cut engineering change order cycle times by 90% and improved communication at its design centers.
Agile is currently deployed in seven TFS locations.
Henkel will make a cash donation of $677,000 (500,000 euros) plus clothing and hygiene products valued at $677,000 (500,000 euros).
"Henkel has endeavored to respond to this catastrophe by providing aid and assistance to the victims in as rapid and as unbureaucratic a manner as possible," said Knut Weinke, executive vice president, human resources.
Henkel is a provider of consumer and industrial brands like Loctite adhesives, Dial soap, Duck duct tape.
The 53,000 sq. ft. facility will house R&D and applications engineering for the company's die attach, semiconductor underfill, encapsulant and semiconductor mold compound products.
The company's electronics assembly materials headquarters will also move to the site.
"Combining the research and development operation with applications engineering has many benefits," says Dr. Larry Crane, global director of semiconductor research, development and engineering, in a press statement. "This shared expertise gives us the ability to enhance the coordination of customer projects, streamline product introductions, build and test parts for customers and bring advanced materials to market more quickly."
The facility houses a cutting-edge R&D lab, including an analytical and failure analysis lab. It boasts a 5,000 sq. ft. Class 10,000 cleanroom, for semiconductor applications, and a 2,000 sq. ft. surface mount production line.
Henkel said it plans several new facilities worldwide.
"Doing business with reference customers such as NASA Ames Research Center and the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, we value highly that Solectron does such an excellent job at producing our PCBAs and performs NPI activities in its facility in Milpitas," said Dick Harkness, vice president of manufacturing operations, SGI. "Having an EMS partner with a robust, near-market manufacturing capability enables us to quickly react to customer needs and offers an added level of supply chain security for mission-critical government accounts."
In all, SGI presented five Outstanding Supplier Awards in fiscal 2004.
US Patent 6,819,004 covers an epoxy-fluxing technology that enables no-flow underfill. The methods and materials covered within the patent permit attachment of flip chips to electronics assemblies sans underfill adhesive processes.
Kester is offering licenses for the patented technology.
In a press release, Kester said the novel technology halves the number of process steps by eliminating a steps for flux residue cleaning, capillary underfill lengthy dispensing and capillary underfill post-curing.
Central to the technology is the use of epoxy that acts as a flux during the initial soldering and then acts as an adhesive during encapsulation. The soldering or fluxing operation and encapsulation have been combined into a single stage. The patent for this technology not only covers the material but also the application such that the flip chips could be attached to the substrate simultaneously with the remainder of the surface mounted devices, Kester said.
"This patent reflects Kester's dedication to continuous innovation, which is our competitive anchor. We are very pleased that Kester's invention has been recognized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office," said Brian Deram, vice president of research and development.
Kester is actively marketing several formulas that are covered by this newly issued patent under its trademarked "SE-CURE" line. Users, the company said, are indemnified from the method of use claims covered by this patent. Licensing opportunities are available, Kester said.
ORLANDO, Jan. 4 -- A subsidiary of Dover Corp. has purchased Datamax Corp., a supplier of bar code and RFID printers. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Dover is a $5 billion OEM of industrial equipment. Among its holdings is Universal Instruments.
Dover previously announced plans to expand its subsidiary structure from four to six market segments and realign its 49 operating businesses into 13 business groups.
HERNDON, VA, Jan. 3 — The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative consortium today changed its name to the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, or iNEMI.
"As a member-driven organization, we evolve to meet the demands of the changing industry landscape, which means our focus is becoming more global," says Jim McElroy, executive director and CEO, in a press statement. "[W]e have chosen a new name that retains some of our hard-earned brand recognition while signaling our move to a broader geographic scope."
McElroy said the iNEMI board has consistently guided the consortium toward a more global perspective. The organization opened its membership to all North American companies in 1996 and in 2004 actively recruited international participation in several activities.
Furthermore, the 2004 iNEMI technology roadmap marked the first time the group actively recruited participation from Asia and Europe.
The consortium has also revised its bylaws amd meeting structure to incorporate companies in Asia and Europe.
The PPM Project, sponsored by SMART Group and the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, seeks to measure defect levels of tin/lead and lead-free assemblies. The groups will use parts per million defective as the main metric. Companies across Europe will be included in the study, which will be based on existing product acceptability methods to ensure results can be easily compared.
In a press statement, the groups said that "a common question is, How does my process compare with other companies' in terms of yield? The information did not exist or was not easily available to small and medium volume companies until the launch of the project."
IPC and IEC standards will be used to support the PPM evaluation, the groups said.
The PPM Project is part of LeadOut, an effort to inform and prepare electronics manufacturers for lead-free products. Results will be available from the LeadOut Website soon. For more information contact technical@smartgroup.org.
The agreement is subject to approval by Tecnomatix shareholders and regulatory authorities.
Under the terms, Tecnomatix shareholders will receive $17 per share in cash, a premium of 39% over Tecnomatix's average closing price over the last 60 trading days.
Tecnomatix's board has unanimously approved the deal.
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