BANNOCKBURN, IL – Printed circuit board orders at North American fabricators fell 18% year-over-year, pushing year-to-date orders down 8.1%. Sequentially, orders were down 14.3%, says IPC, which tracks the data.

HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND -- A recent lapse in donor funding that threatened progress of the Conflict Free Tin Initiative project in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been overcome by new commitments from upstream companies. The new funding sources will be sufficient to keep the iTSCi Program operating at Nyabibwe, South Kivu, DRC, pending further developments on funding, the ITRI said today.

MOELDRUP, DENMARK -- Selektro A/S has acquired the assets of bankrupt EMS firm HLH Electronics, the company said.

SHENZHEN, CHINA – Hon Hai (Foxconn) plans to hire more than 100,000 people in mainland China to make the latest Apple iPhone, say reports.

SAN JOSE —North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers posted three-month average basis orders of $1.41 billion worldwide in May, up 6.6% from a year ago. Orders were down 2.4% from the revised April figures, the SEMI trade group said. 

The book-to-bill ratio was 1.0, according to SEMI. A book-to-bill of 1.0 means that $100 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in May was $1.41 billion, up 30 basis points from the final April levels and up 15.1% over May 2013.

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

NAMESTOVO, SLOVAKIA -- EMS firm AWS has expanded facilities in its operation here to tap into higher demand. 

PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA – Nihon Superior has opened a new regional headquarters here.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Jabil Circuit reported third-quarter fiscal 2014 revenue of $3.8 billion, down 9.52% year-over-year.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA – Aqueous Technologies CEO Mike Konrad will present five free cleaning and reliability webinars later this summer.

OYSTER BAY, NY -- Activity trackers dominated sales of wearable devices in the first quarter, outselling much-hyped smartwatches four to one, new research says. Some 2.35 million activity tracking devices shipped during the period, says ABI Research.

HELSINKI -- The VTT Technical Research Centre has developed a method for the manufacture of thin-film transistors using a roll-to-roll technique. The new technique uses printing, the institute says, for the deposition of patterns on the substrate layer of film.

MILWAUKEE, WI – A new white paper from Brady provides information on how a traceability system can provide the visibility needed to realize cost savings and process and product quality improvements.