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News

Visiprise Inc. (Atlanta, GA), a provider of manufacturing execution systems for electronics, automotive, aerospace and defense industries, has been selected by Actia Group (Toulouse, France) to provide quality and production management control for its manufacturing plants in Tunis, Tunisia and Colomiers, France. Operating in 13 countries, Actia Group is a manufacturer of vehicle electronics and diagnostics for major automotive and aerospace original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Visiprise Manufacturing, the manufacturing execution software, links OEMs and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) suppliers and provides visibility during the manufacturing process, thereby accelerating new products to market and reducing overall manufacturing costs.

"Actia Group chose Visiprise Manufacturing to handle complex control, tracking and traceability requirements during the manufacturing process," said Robert Consoli, vice president of worldwide sales, Visiprise. "As a supplier to major automotive and aerospace OEMs, Visiprise provides Actia Group with the tools needed to control and to gain visibility of critical routing, repair loop and non-conformance information during the manufacturing process."

Visiprise is a provider of software solutions for real-time visibility and control of manufacturing operations for discrete manufacturers. Its flagship solution is a Web-based, collaborative manufacturing execution system (MES) that helps manage and track the entire production process. It is the industry's only independent platform technology for manufacturing execution.

www.visiprise.com

DEK (San Jose, CA), a high accuracy mass imaging solutions provider, has taken electroform stencils to the next level by incorporating an exclusive, sophisticated aperture height control method to their production of Eform stencils.

The stencils incorporate provide superior performance and ensure seal contact to the pad, pad paste deposit and a greater percentage volume of paste on pad. The reactive force created by the stencils provides for an even distribution of paste and allows for a more clean release of paste from the aperture. This technology also delivers ultimate control over stencil thickness and uniformity, ensuring paste volume consistency for fine pitch applications. The stencils also improve solder paste release for some of the more challenging lead-free solder paste formulations.

When the stencil process is combined with the new variable aperture height technology (VAHT), it becomes even more powerful.

Richard Tang, DEK global Eform manager, said, "Board co-planarity issues are a prevalent problem. The uneven resist layer causes a poor seal between the board and the stencil, which can result in printing problems. DEK has that problem solved. Our VAHT, an inherent characteristic of DEK's Eform stencils, adjusts for the variances in resist layer heights and provides a uniform seal across the entire board."

DEK's Eform process and inherent VAHT produce stencils that will enable technology for next-generation fine-pitch surface-mount and semiconductor packaging technologies. As the lines between complex surface-mount assembly and semiconductor packaging processes continue to blur, the need for advanced stencil technology becomes even more apparent.

www.dek.com

The International Microelectronics And Packaging Society (IMAPS, Washington, D.C.) has announced that Colonel Danny McKnight, whose heroic exploits as Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment assigned to Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia, were chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down," will deliver the keynote address at an upcoming IMAPS Advanced Technology Workshop (ATW). The Military, Aerospace, Space and Homeland Security ATW will be held at the Renaissance Harbor Place Hotel, Baltimore, MD on March 28-30.

Col. McKnight recently retired after a distinguished and highly decorated career as a U.S. Army Ranger. His experience represents a lifetime of dedication to the defense of America.

In addition to his expertise in military matters, highlights of his management career include: providing direct financial management, guidance,and oversight of an annual operational budget of approximately $50 million; developing a strategic planning concept and a measurable results program to track its successful implementation for the integration of active and reserve component soldiers as part of the Army's training strategy for the year 2000 and beyond; and directing a staff of more than 300 to provide support for a field force of 10,000 people, who had to meet the training requirements for approximately 250,000 reserve component soldiers.

Col. McKnight's awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit with Two Oak Leaf Clusters; Bronze Star for Valor; Purple Heart; Meritorious Service Medal with Five Oak Leaf Clusters; Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster; Army Achievement Medal; National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star; Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal with Arrowhead and Bronze Star; Combat Infantryman's Badge; Ranger Tab; Master Parachutist Badge with Bronze Star; and Pathfinder Badge.

Greg Caswell, General Chair of the Workshop, said, "We are extremely proud and honored that one of our country's most distinguished military heroes has agreed to take the time to come and speak at our Workshop."

For more information on the workshop, visit http://www.imaps.org/registration/military2004.htm.

YESTech (San Clemente, CA), a provider of yield enhancement solutions, has announced that it has won a contract to provide automated optical inspection (AOI) technology to Zentech Manufacturing Inc. (Baltimore, MD), a full-service contract electronics manufacturers in the mid-Atlantic region.

Zentech will use YESTech's YTV-2050 AOI system for automated inspection of its printed circuit boards (PCBs), which are used in both military and commercial applications. The system was implemented at Zentech's 42,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Baltimore.

"Our business is doubling in size each year, creating a challenge in terms of the high volume of PCBs that need to be inspected," said Dave Hughes, director of advanced operations engineering for Zentech Manufacturing. "After evaluating AOI systems, I selected YESTech because they are leading the market with innovations such as multi-camera technology and easily took care of 80% of our inspection needs. We assemble thousands of boards per day to IPC 610 class 2 and 3 standards, so our quality and workmanship is critical."

The AOI system provides Zentech with defect detection and repeatability, ease of use and value. Up to eight cameras feature proprietary color megapixel Thin Camera technology, which integrates color, normalized correlation and rule-based algorithms to provide high-speed PCB inspection with exceptional defect coverage and a low false failure rate.

www.yestechinc.com

www.zentechman.com

During the 2004 Apex tradeshow, Techspray (Amarillo, TX) presented Hisco (Houton, TX), an electronics distributor, with the 2003 Sales Growth Award. Hisco, a long-time distributor for Techspray, had 40% growth in calendar year 2003 over 2002. The growth is good news after several years of mainly bad news for the electronics industry.

The company also announced that they have hired Ken Caskey as the North American Sales Manager. Caskey has nineteen years of experience with the Premier Farnell organization including assignments for Newark Electronics in England and Chicago. He most recently served as vice-president of sales for MCM Electronics, an InOne company.

Techspray is a brand of precision cleaning technologies for the electronics industry. Techspray's Industrial product line includes cleaner/degreasers, defluxers, contact cleaners, lubricants, corrosion inhibitors, aerosol adhesives, desoldering braid, hand tools and solder tips.

www.techspray.com

Data I/O Corp. (Redmond, WA), a provider of manual and automated device programming systems, has announced the appointment of Joseph L. Murdica as vice president of Americas and Asia, effective March 1, 2004. Murdica will manage the company's sales organization throughout the Americas and Asia.

He served the company previously as director of North American sales from 1991 to 1996. He was vice president, Americas, with Digital Microwave/Stratex Networks from 1996 through 2002 and most recently held an executive sales position with Aeroflex Corp.

Fred Hume, president and chief executive officer, said, "With Joe's extensive knowledge of our products, our customers and our sales channels, he will have an immediate impact on our results. I'm simply delighted to have him back on the Data I/O team."

Data I/O has representatives and distributors throughout the Americas and Asia as well as offices in Redmond, Canada, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, China.

www.dataio.com

The practice of outsourcing electronics manufacturing gained popularity in the 1970s—largely in the U.S., and today most of the world's largest contract manufacturers (CMs) are headquartered in North America. Yet the never-ending search for lower cost manufacturing has prompted these companies to shift manufacturing to other regions—primarily to Asia. In fact, electronics manufacturing strategist Technology Forecasters Inc. (TFI, Alameda, CA) estimates that today more than a third of the world's outsourced electronic products are built in China and that by 2007 the portion will increase to half.

Profiling the type of manufacturing most likely to remain in North America is the focus of a study TFI will present at its March 10 Quarterly Forum for Electronics Manufacturing Outsourcing and Supply Chain, in the Dallas, TX, area. For the study, entitled Electronic Manufacturing Services Industry in North American Market: Current Outlook and Positioning for the Future, TFI interviewed executives at CMs around the world as well as name-brand product companies' outsourcing decision makers choosing among regions.

"Although most of the executives we interviewed were able to identify some niche markets or region-appropriate functions likely to remain in North America, without exception every executive predicted further loss of manufacturing jobs on the continent," said TFI president Pamela Gordon. "The keys to CMs retaining as many jobs as possible are to offer multinational manufacturing options—whether at their own facilities or through alliances—and to serving local customers with such close attention as to create a nearly impenetrable barrier to leave."

Yet even for the types of business likely to remain, disagreement exists among CMs and their customers regarding the staying power of manufacturing in North America. The CEO at a mid-sized North American CM said, "The strength will be the responsiveness of the industry in North America. This will not be available half way around the world. Cheaper product undelivered does not help the customer's bottom line."

A different response was offered by an outsourcing decision maker at a large North American customer company: "It's mainly price. Mexico, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico have some cost advantages, but if total cost is less elsewhere then the product won't stay in North America."

Other TFI reports to be presented at the Quarterly Forum include Competing with the Dragon: The EMS Industry in Asia Outside China and Outsourcing in Telecom: Finding Value Again. A panel on the future of design services will be moderated by Tom Valliere of Design Chain Associates, and feature Bill Coker of Elcoteq Americas, Michael Shores of Texas Prototypes, Mike Wilkinson of Paragon Innovations and several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) sharing their experiences of using contract design services. Also, Agile Software will coach Quarterly Forum members in tracking materials and recycling in accordance with environmental regulations WEEE and ROHS.

www.techforecasters.com

Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. (Herzlia, Israel), a provider of manufacturing process management (MPM), announced that it has entered into a worldwide distribution agreement with SPEA (Volpiano, Italy) to market the Tecnomatix eM-Test Expert to its global customer base. SPEA manufactures and markets automatic test equipment (ATE) for microchips, electronic modules and boards.

Expanding a long relationship with Tecnomatix, SPEA will offer the solution as the preferred software package to prepare data for faster test programs generation and machine support for SPEA testers. SPEA customers include companies in a variety of industries, including industrial electronics, automotive, safety/security electronics, consumer electronics, lighting, medical electronics, telecommunications, military and aerospace.

The software helps users increase productivity and performance by optimizing test and inspection processes. It will enable SPEA customers to eliminate bottlenecks in their test processes and speed time to market of their products.

Andrea Ganio, executive manager, SPEA, said, "Through our partnership with Tecnomatix Unicam, we will be able to increase the capabilities of our automatic test equipment, while offering SPEA customers a flexible tool that integrates easily into their existing eMPower for Electronics solutions."

www.tecnomatix.com

www.spea.net

Aguila Technologies (San Marcos, CA) announced that Henkel-Loctite Corp. (Industry, CA) has purchased a license to Aguila's patents on a pre-applied flip chip underfill technology. The Aguila license provides Henkel-Loctite the right to provide wafer-applied flip chip underfill adhesives that will enable fabrication of flip chips at lower cost and increased yield by eliminating the conventional capillary underfill technique.

Aguila's work in the field of advanced flip chip packaging over the past few years has led to over a dozen patents ranging from wafer-level and flip chip processes to no-flow underfills. Aguila's invention provides for a two-portion, or two-level, fluxing adhesive underfill approach. It overcomes the problem of applying an underfill adhesive containing filler particles to a flip chip prior to assembly.

Conventional flip chip technology generally requires that flip chip assemblies be encapsulated with an adhesive, or underfill, to protect the tiny flip chip solder joints from thermal fatigue failure. Particulate fillers in conventional underfills are the essential ingredients that reduce the adhesive's expansion rate with temperature fluctuations. The reduced expansion allows the underfill to match the expansion of the chip's solder bumps, greatly reducing fatigue failures during thermal cycling.

However, the application of underfills to finished flip chip assemblies has historically been a limiting factor to production yield and assembly cost. Conventional underfills are applied through a capillary flow liquid dispensing operation that creates a number of production obstacles.

Ideally, underfills would be applied to flip chips prior assembly. Attempts to put the essential filler particles into no-flow underfills have generally resulted in poor solder wetting and reduced product yields. The filler particles interfere with the flip chip soldering operation. These problems have led to no-flow underfills with no filler particles, limiting their usefulness.

Aguila's two-portion pre-applied underfill eliminates the problem. One portion, constituting the majority of the underfill, is filled with the essential particles that reduce thermal expansion. A second portion comprises few or no filler particles. Yet, it is the second portion that provides the fluxing action during the flip chip soldering operation. This results in a pre-applied underfill that does not interfere adversely with the soldering operation.

Aguila's innovation provides two-portion underfills that are pre-applied to flip chips, either at the wafer level, after wafer sawing, or just prior to the assembly operation. Thus, it eliminates the tedious dispense operation after flip chips are assembled. The underfill may be applied to hundreds of chips at a single time at the wafer, instead of one at a time after assembly.

www.aguilatech.com

www.loctite.com

Panasonic Factory Automation (PFA) Co. (Elgin, IL) recently introduced its newest large screen printer, the SP60. It was designed for both the high- and low-volume manufacturer who requires ultra printing accuracy.

The screen printer's benefits include speed--6.0 sec.; accuracy--625 micron (1 mil), with repeatability of 7.5 micron (0.3 mils); and flexibility--full-floating squeegee head, selectable optimized stencil release feature, automated cleaning, universal stencil holding capability to handle 21 in. to 29 in. frames without the need for adapters.

The printer also features an intuitive programming interface. Its accurate cartridge head minimizes errors, resulting in greater productivity and efficiency.

www.panasonicfa.com

According to IPC (Northbrook, IL), the North American IMS/PCB Industry book-to-bill ratio for January remained positive at 1.08.

The ratio is calculated by averaging the index numbers for orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average index numbers for sales billed during the same period. A ratio of more than 1.00 suggests that current demand is ahead of supply, which indicates probable near-term growth.

Shipments increased 28.4% from January 2003 and orders booked increased 19.8% year-on-year. The shipment index was 118.1, down 6.5% from December 2003 and the IMS/PCB booking index was 125.2, down 8.7% sequentially.

The index shows how current PCB shipments and bookings relate to an index point. In this case, 1992 was chosen as the index point because it was a stable growth year for U.S. PCB manufacturers. A shipment index number of 117.0, for example, indicates that shipments are 17% higher than average shipments for the same time period in 1992.

Percentages based on the index numbers reflect changes in the size of the industry. Data reported by current participants in IPC's monthly survey, however, tell a different story. These participating companies report that their shipments increased 25.1 percent in January 2004 over January 2003, and that their orders booked increased 18.2 percent in January, year over year.

Together, these figures show a North American PCB industry that has contracted, but the companies that remain in the industry are doing better than last year.

The information in IPC's monthly industry statistics is based on data provided by PCB manufacturers that participate in IPC's monthly IMS Statistical Program. The companies reportedly represent 60% of the U.S. IMS industry.

www.ipc.org

UP Media Group Inc. (Atlanta, GA) has announced the details for two technology presentations that will take place at the 13th annual PCB Design Conference West (PCB West) on March 15-19 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA.

To kick-off this year's conference, the PCB Technology Forum and Welcome Luncheon will take place on Monday, March 15, from 12-1:30 p.m. Joseph Fjelstad, co-founder of Silicon Valley startup SiliconPipe and author of An Engineer's Guide to Flexible Circuits, will make a technical presentation on "The Benefits of Three-Dimensional Partitioning of Printed Circuit Signal Routing."

According to Fjelstad, it is often assumed that copper is just too slow for electronics applications requiring high speeds; however, the truth is that copper can transmit signals at near the speed of light if properly configured. Fjelstad's presentation will focus on an innovative process being developed at SiliconPipe. This creative destruction involves splitting an integrated circuit (IC) package I/O by launching high-speed signals through the bottom of the package, while routing lower speed power and ground signals through the bottom of the package. Signal strength and integrity should be improved, and with the high-speed I/O more accessible, the IC can be tested with full parametrics at full speed.

Conference attendees taking one of six Professional Development courses taught on Monday, March 15, may attend the PCB Technology Forum and Welcome Luncheon for free. All others who wish to attend the event may do so for a fee of $25.

A second technology presentation will be held on Thursday, March 18, from 11: 15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., and attendance is free to all registered conference and expo-only attendees. Eric Hills, the applications engineering manager at Endicott Interconnect Technologies, will make a technical presentation on "Meeting the PCB Needs for High-Speed Data Transmission."

According to Hills, achieving data rates of up to 10 Gb/s requires close attention to transmission line geometries, dielectric properties and via utilization, as well as a physical design awareness that is not usually required. His presentation will address the methods for ensuring that the interconnections are suitable for high speeds, and how to accomplish this with traditional (i.e., cost-effective) techniques that provide maximum wiring efficiency. Special focus will be placed on the advantages that certain transmission line and via structures provide for such high-speed connections.

Before founding SiliconPipe, Fjelstad was with Tessera, where he was the company's first fellow. He is the author, co-author or editor of several books and numerous articles on electronic manufacturing. Fjelstad is also a prodigious inventor, with more than 150 U.S. patents issued or pending.

Formerly the product manager for PCBs at EIT, Hills has held positions at IBM as applications engineering manager for ceramic packaging and as new products program manager for PCBs and electronic assemblies. He has a B.S. in chemical engineering from Penn State.

UPMG is a privately held company that specializes in magazine publishing and trade show and conference production. UPMG currently publishes two high-tech magazines: Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture (www.pcdandm.com) and Circuits Assembly (www.circuitsassembly.com). In addition, UPMG produces two annual conferences and trade shows for the design and manufacture industry—PCB Design Conference West (www.pcbwest.com) in the Silicon Valley area, and PCB Design Conference East (www.pcbeast.com) in the Boston, MA, area. UPMG also hosts the PCB Design Conference Road Series (www.pcbshows.com) of courses in cities throughout the U.S.

www.pcbwest.com