SHANGHAI – Nepcon China, Shanghai’s largest electronics manufacturing trade show, offered some changes over 2006, but mostly more of the same.

On the plus side, attendance has been strong and steady. And next year’s show is reportedly already sold out. The downside is that there simply isn’t much in the way of new equipment or materials.

Attendance slowed Wednesday, the second day of the show, despite a noticeable uptick in the number of Westerners, observed CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY, the only U.S.-based publication here at the show this week.

One outlier is Speedline Technologies, which rolled out its Momentum printer, a new mid-range platform that signals the eventual end of the AccuFlex and UP 3000 (the UP 2000 continues to be built).

There are fewer domestic Chinese suppliers than in past years. Also gone are most (though not all) of the booths selling gaskets, foam, clamps and seals. There’s clearly some separation taking place among the lower end vendors. GKG has a much larger booth in which it is showing four printers, two of which closely resemble EKRA machines (as does the company’s logo) and a new one that’s a dead ringer for the DEK Europa. Likewise, Hexi Electronic Equipment (aka “V Soltes”) had several machines ranging from waves to ovens to AOI.

There were no local attempts at placement machines this year, and fewer local printer suppliers than I remember in the past. Their place was taken by an influx of AOI vendors, one of which, VCTA, showed a $55,000 2-D inline machine said to capable of inspecting 0201s with better than 10 micron accuracy.

As in past years, the show site is less than ideal. The Everbright Convention Center is plagued with idiosyncrasies ranging from a lack of proper power and compressed air resources to the chains on the exit doors. The center takes up two buildings; attendees and exhibitors must traverse a bustling city street that intersects the two. The show occupies three floors in the larger building, further inconveniencing navigation.

(A member of the Reed marketing staff contended there were no longer power cables running across aisles on the main floor. That assertion was promptly proved false – unless small Chinese children were somehow trapped in great numbers under the carpet – as this reporter repeatedly tripped over 6" high “speed bumps.”)

Among the interesting local products was a long (6.3 meter) nitrogen reflow oven featuring 12 heating and four cooling zones, and a large discrete auto-chiller. The ProfileTronic 1204 reflows bottom side components by raising boards on the conveyor, versus flipping them. MagicTek offers a lifetime warranty on the heater and blower, and a five-year guarantee that the heater will be flux-free. The company claims 80 to 100 installations of the $100,000 units so far.