Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - News

News

INDUSTRY, CA, Oct. 1 -- Following three years of intensive evaluation Motorola has qualified a lead-free solder paste from Henkel Electronics.

"I think the great advantage of this material is that it provides a very wide process window, which gives us tremendous flexibility," says Vahid Goudarzi, a distinguished member of the technical staff at Motorola. "From printing to reflow, we really stressed the material and it was able to meet our very rigorous technical requirements."

Multicore LF320 requires a minimum peak reflow of 229°C, about 11°C lower than standard lead-free pastes. (Higher Dt assembly designs can be reflowed in air at up to 260°C.) The difference provides a safety margin when reflowing temperature-sensitive components. According to Henkel, the paste prints at a speed range of 25-100 mms-1 (6"s-1), wets on a range of surface finishes, and has been formulated to provide high resistance to slump and solderballing.

LF320 is classified as a ROMO per J-STD-004 and meets or exceeds Bellcore GR-78-CORE tests for electromigration.

The material has been optimized for reflow in air on a range of PCB assembly applications and reflow profiles may be extended with nitrogen, Henkel said in a press statement.

Good call: Henkel's Chris Korth (left) and Cary Vocelka (right) receive the good news from Vahid Goudarzi of Motorola.

DES PLAINES, IL, Oct. 1 — Kester will open a solder manufacturing facility in Mexico, the company said today. The Nogales plant will manufacture solder pastes, wire products and fluxes.

"Expansion into Mexico supports our strategy to deliver globally," Kester vice president of marketing and business development David Torp said in a press statement. Torp noted the years-long migration of assembly operations into China, Mexico and Eastern Europe.

Kester plans additional plants in Suzhou, China, in 2005, and Plauen-Neuensatz, Germany, which has been operational since June.

BOSTON, Sept. 30 -- Some of the greatest technology minds gathered this week in Boston to discuss innovation, yet the talk continually turned to something much more mundane: standards.

Noted luminaries ranging from a senior R&D executive at IBM to the man credited with creating the Worldwide Web agreed that standards and innovation go hand-in-hand, and that more attention needs to be paid to ensuring standards for new technologies are open.

Speaking to an audience of about 500 at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, said it's "very important" that stakeholders protect the Web from being "tripped up by software patents." And Paul Horn, senior VP of IBM Research, called open standards "critical for speedy innovation at a company, in an ecosystem, in the country."

Horn decried those who seek IP protection, at the cost of slowing innovation. "Success in R&D requires rapid flow of innovation into the marketplace. Time to market is critical." Universities that elbow aside businesses seeking to partner on R&D because of worries over IP rights strain new products, too, he said.

Berners-Lee noted that patent licensing royalties form a barrier for companies that develop new technology. "You could never find out what patent could possibly apply to what technology," he said.

Berners-Lee now directs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open forum of companies and organizations that develop Web standards. W3C advocates a royalty-free standards policy for patent licensing.

Most of the technology discussion over the two-day event centered on software advancements - and, as in the case of standards, potential hurdles. While there was talk of nanotechnology and outsourcing - with speakers brushing aside concerns over regional job loss as a natural result of bringing lower cost product to market, what the conference didn't cover in depth was potential new manufacturing techniques.

Solectron's Q4 Loss Narrows
10-01-2004

by Mike Buetow

MILPITAS, CA, Sept. 28 -- Solectron Corp. saw its fiscal fourth-quarter loss narrow on a strong increase in sales. The company reported a loss of $2.4 million on sales of $3 billion for the quarter ended Aug. 31.

Last year, the EMS maker reported a loss of $179 million on revenue of $2.44 billion. Excluding items, earnings from continuing operations were 4 cents a share in the latest period, reversing a loss of 6 cents a share, and in line with analysts' expectations and company guidance.

Solectron guided for November quarter earnings, before items, of 4 to 6 cents a share on sales of $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion.

Solectron chief executive Michael Cannon said company strength in the markets for networking equipment and set-top boxes, offset by weakness in computing, storage, wireline infrastructure and third-generation cellphones.

For the year, the company reported a loss of $168.9 million on revenue of $11.6 billion. In the same period last year, it reported a loss of $3.45 million on revenue of $9.83 billion.

SAN JOSE, Oct. 1 - Flextronics was the world's largest EMS firm in 2003, with revenues of $13.8 billion, Reed Research Group said today.

Solectron was number two at 11.1 billion, followed by Sanmina-SCI($10.8 billion), Celestica ($6.7 billion) and Jabil Circuit ($5.2 billion).

The rest of the top 10 were: Finland-based Elcoteq ($2.8 billion), Venture of Singapore ($1.9 billion), Benchmark Electronics ($1.8 billion), Taiwan's Universal Scientific Industrial ($1.2 billion) and Plexus (841 million).

No. 11 Manufacturers' Services Ltd. ($825 million) has since merged with Celestica. The complete list of the top 100 can be linked to at: www.reed-electronics.com/eb-mag/article/CA447588?nid=2017&rid=231544418.

SAN JOSE, Sept. 30 - The worldwide 90-day moving average sales of semiconductors grew to $18.2 billion in August, an increase of 1.1% over July, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported today. Meanwhile, IC makers are responding quickly to reports of excess inventories, SIA asserted.

Sales increased 34.2% from last August, in line with historical patterns.

"Semiconductor producers and their customers have reacted with unprecedented speed to recent reports of excess chip inventories," said SIA president George Scalise, in a press statement. "In previous market cycles, it has generally taken several quarters for the supply chain to take corrective action. When the first reports of excess inventory accumulation surfaced in the second quarter, both producers and customers moved quickly to adjust.

A pair of research groups, VLSI Research and iSuppli, are now reporting that chip inventories are declining, Scalise said.

Capital spending at IC makers is about 23% of sales, in line with historical patterns, SIA said. "At this time, we do not believe overcapacity will be a major concern in 2005," SIA said.

SIA reiterated its forecast of 28% growth for 2004. Its 2005 industry forecast will be released Nov. 3.

Sales of PCs and equipment for networking and telecommunications contributed to semiconductor growth in August. Sales of microprocessors increased 3.5% sequentially, reflecting PC sales patterns of the back-to-school season.

Chip sales were up modestly in all geographic regions. In Asia-Pacific, sales increased just 0.1% sequentially, reflecting the impact of inventory adjustment actions taken by OEMs, SIA said.

NEW YORK, Oct. 1 -- Flextronics is poised to gain market share from competitors Sanmina-SCI and Solectron, says an analyst who met with the EMS maker yesterday.

Thanks to a combination of the lowest-cost footprint and the most robust design offering in the industry, Flextronics is evolving into a design and component manufacturer that also offers EMS services, wrote Chris Whitmore, an analyst with Deutsche Bank's Equity Research group. In fact, wrote Whitemore, Flextronics "suggested that it could give away the assembly business for free if customers opted to use its competitively priced components."

"We remain confident in Flextronics` long-term vision and strategic direction," Whitmore wrote. He said Flextronics' vertical strategy and low-cost assets is "driving its customers' costs lower --faster than anyone else in the industry."

In other news from the analyst day, Flextronics said it is in the process of consolidating roughly $1.3 billion of business from other EMS suppliers into its existing manufacturing facilities, to the detriment of Sanmina-SCI and Solectron, according to DB.

NORTHBROOK, IL, Aug. 27 -- August orders for rigid circuit boards rose 8.7% while demand for flex circuits showed signs of weakness, according to the latest 90-day moving average of North American manufacturers.

"Both rigid and flex shipments are rebounding from the recession and are showing strong growth, but flex is growing at a faster rate than rigid," IPC said in a press release.

For all board types, shipments rose 33.6% and bookings were up 9.8% vs. a year ago, said IPC, which administers the monthly poll. The figures may include some sales of products built offshore and brokered by the surveyed companies.

The August book-to-bill ratio was 1.05 for rigid, up 0.06 points sequentially. The B2B for flex circuits fell precipitously, from 1.57 last month to 0.98 in August.

The book-to-bill for all board types rose fell 0.06 points to 1.04.

The ratio is calculated by averaging the number of orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average sales billed during the same period. A ratio of 1.04 means that for every $100 in shipments, $104 worth of PCBs were booked. An increasing ratio is generally considered a sign of a market poised to rise.

Year-to-date shipments are up 34.7% and bookings are up 38%. Combined August shipments rose 13.8% sequentially, while bookings fell 0.3%.

August rigid shipments were up 21.9% and bookings 8.7% over last year. Year-to-date, rigid shipments are up 25.1% and bookings are up 21.1%. Among those surveyed, rigid shipments rose 15.2% sequentially and bookings were 7.6% higher.

August flex shipments were up 75.2% yet bookings slumped, falling 19.3% vs. last year. Year-to-date, flex shipments are up 77.4% and bookings 100.7%. Sequentially, flex shipments rose 8.5% and bookings dropped 27.1%.

Flex sales, which include some value-added services, make up about 17% of total PCB sales in the IPC poll.

The data come from a sample of North American rigid and flexible PCB manufacturers.

Jersey City, NJ, Sept. 20 - With the cost of a key constituent of fluxes rising sharply, Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials will hike prices for IPA-based fluxes.

Come November, Cookson will raise IPA flux prices 70 cents per gallon, in response to the volatility of petrochemical prices on the world market. The company said that isopropyl alcohol prices have risen 78% since June 2003

"Faced with this significant rise in petrochemical-based solvent prices, we were forced to announce this limited price increase on alcohol-based flux products," said Mitch Holtzer, global product manager-flux products.

Cookson said the decision would not affect pricing for its water-based VOC-free flux line.

ATLANTA, GA, Sept. 23 — More than 50 exhibiting companies will display and demonstrate their products, services and technologies for the PCB design industry during the ninth annual PCB Design Conference East 2004.

Scheduled for October 4-8 at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, NH, the event includes a two-day exhibition and a five-day conference of technical courses centered around the theme: "Education for Your Most Pressing Design Challenges: Including Lead-Free, Embedded Components, High Speed and PCB Design Fundamentals."

Special events that are free to registered attendees include "The Impact of Lead-Free on PCB Design" keynote address by Joseph Fjelstad, a co-founder of Silicon Valley startup SiliconPipe and Tessera's first fellow; an opening night reception in the exhibit hall; and the Brew-ha-ha Party at Jillian's in downtown Manchester, featuring food, drink and music by the Porch Dawgs (an infamous blues band made up of musically-inclined PCB industry professionals).

The following products and/or services are among the many to be featured at the show:

· Calumet Electronics Corp. (Booth 302) will feature lead-free surface coatings, including an electroless nickel/immersion gold (KAT Process) alternative to HASL and Presa RGA-14, an immersion silver process.

· ChipData's (Booth 120) PkgXpert 2.5 helps electronic OEMs and contract manufacturers to streamline the board manufacturing process by creating a specification-driven, standardized package geometry library that can be shared and regenerated whenever specifications change.

· Dynamic Details (Booth 119) will feature Stacked Microvia Technology (SMV), which improves routing density and design flexibility.

· Intercept Technology (Booth 101) will demonstrate and announce the release of Pantheon v5.0, Mozaix v2.1 and INDX v2.1.

· Polar Instruments (Booth 105) will feature the enhanced stackup builder SB200a v2.0, which now interfaces to the industry standard Si800m impedance solver to offer brilliant stackup graphics plus stack, drill and impedance data in a variety of file and print formats. A free reader allows users to easily share this high quality stackup presentation with anyone.

· Sovereign Circuits (Booth 214) will feature the addition of immersion silver finish to their product offerings.

· T-Tech (Booth 201) will feature QC Trace Cam, an integrated inspection system specifically for applications requiring magnified inspection area. Easy to install, QC Trace Cam allows real-time viewing of traces.

· Zuken USA (Booth 202) will feature CADSTAR 7, a PCB Desktop Solution that delivers a powerful price/performance package for PC-based PCB design. Zuken USA also will feature CR-5000, which incorporates the latest technology requirements (embedded components, RF design and design re-use) within a constrained design process methodology.

www.pcbeast.com

TORONTO, Sept. 24 -- Celestica Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to divest its Power Systems business to C&D Technologies, the companies said today. Celestica will continue to build certain power products for C&D for the next three years.

Terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close within 30 days.

The transaction includes the assets and employees of Power Systems.

BOSTON, Sept. 20, 2004 — Teradyne Inc. today cut its outlook for the September quarter, citing lower customer spending.

"Our customers are reducing their spending in the face of what appears to be an industry-wide slowdown," said Michael Bradley, president and CEO. "As a result, we are now projecting third quarter shipments to be between $450 million and $470 million. Our earnings per share are now expected to be between 21 and 26 cents, on a diluted basis."

Teradyne had previously projected sales of between $530 million to $560 million for the third quarter, with earnings per share projected to be between 39 and 46 cents.

Teradyne will report third quarter results on Oct. 19.

Mentor Links PADS to Outside Libraries
09-23-2004

by Mike Buetow

WILSONVILLE, OR, Sept. 22 -— A pair of component libraries will now be available within Mentor Graphics' PADS PCB design flow.

Under a just announced agreement, PADS design tool users will have access to symbol and footprint databases of Optimum Design Associates (optimumdesign.com) and PCB Libraries (pcblibraries.com).

The arrangement should cut library creation times for users, Mentor said.

"Optimum and PCB Libraries allow direct interaction with suppliers of quality component symbols and footprints," said Syed Gilani, PADS general manager, in a press statement. This access can translate into significant time and resource savings as the designer will not need to develop libraries from scratch for use within the PADS flow."

Rhode Island -- AIM has appointed Cluff and Associates as manufacturers' rep for the company's line of solders and related assembly materials in Colorado.

Cluff & Associates, headquartered in Denver, CO, specializes in sales, service and customer support for electronic production materials and equipment.

AIM is a global manufacturer of assembly materials for the electronics industry. The company produces solder paste, liquid flux, cored wire, bar solder, adhesives, preforms and specialty alloys such as indium and gold for the electronics assembly, PC fabrication, component manufacturing and other industries.