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The SIA forecast that revised semiconductor growth from 19% and 6% growth in 2004 and 2005, respectively, to 29% and 4%, should negatively impact equipment sales for 2004, according to the report, "The Global Market for Equipment and Materials for IC Manufacturing," recently published by The Information Network (New Tripoli, PA), a market research company.

"Negative sentiment from analysts and forecasts of a relatively flat 2005 from the SIA are pointing to eventual pushouts and cancellations of equipment," said Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. "Semiconductor manufacturers are already overly cautious from the last severe downturn, and fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD factor) about growth in late 2004 beyond will affect their decisions to go ahead and purchase more tools they may not need by the time they are delivered."

According to the company, the industry is 9 months into the current equipment upswing, while semiconductor sales have been in an up cycle since January 2002—a period of 28 months. Historically semiconductor and equipment inflections occurred within 3 months of each other.

However, the company believes the industry went through a paradigm shift during the past recession, moving to more aggressive die shrinks and to 300 mm processing to increase production. To avoid massive inventory buildup, semis will not be investing frivolously in equipment, but will instead be closely monitoring real demand. If demand drops, real or perceived, the equipment market boom will be over before it really got a foothold.

"As capacity utilization is the percentage of wafer starts (and we know they've been increasing for 28 months) to capacity, and capacity is showing no growth, it results in increasing capacity utilization," said Castellano. "But why didn't capacity grow when revenues (billings) increased dramatically for the past two quarters? Is capacity utilization really increasing to stratospheric levels as IC manufacturers would lead us to believe at a time they are raising prices?"

Company forecasts from November 2003 called for the front-end equipment market to grow 21% in 2004 and 11.4% in 2005 before dropping 7.9% in 2006, based partly on SIA's forecasts of 19% and 6% growth for 2004 and 2005 and on IC fab capacity.

www.theinformationnet.com

Anticipating engineers' concerns with confusion on the production lines about mixing lead and lead-free materials, Kester (Des Plaines, IL) has announced a change in its lead-free packaging in the solder paste product line. The company is also introducing a new lead-free triangular-shaped bar.

Since April, Kester's lead-free solder paste has been packaged in green jars and cartridges. The traditional solder paste will continue to be packaged in white jars and transparent gray cartridges. The company believes this will make it easier for customers to distinguish between lead and lead-free alloy pastes on their production lines and will also avoid costly confusion, making the transition to lead-free easier.

To further reduce confusion in the customer's production lines, Kester has introduced the industry's first easily distinguishable lead-free triangular solder bar. The company hopes the triangular shaped lead-free bar will keep customers from making costly mistakes in their solder pots.

The change in lead-free packaging will soon be seen globally, but currently the changes will be seen from shipments out of the Des Plaines facility only.

www.kester.com

Deja View Inc. (Brick, NJ), the first company to introduce a wearable digital mini-camcorder with "after-the-fact" recording technology for the consumer market, announced it has contracted with Advent Electronics Pte Ltd. (Singapore) to build its products.

Terms of the strategic partnership were not disclosed, but according to Jeff Sobel, executive vice president of Deja View, Advent "is committed to deliver the products in the quantities we specified to meet our scheduled June launch."

The Model 100 is the first wearable digital camcorder. The tiny camera can be clipped to a pair of eyeglasses or on the bill of a hat. The recording device and digital storage are housed in a PDA-sized unit worn on a belt, waistband or fanny pack. The camera, which will sell for under $400, records 30 seconds of action that occurred before the user presses the record button.

"It was clear to us from the start that Deja View has great ideas, and we are proud to be selected as its manufacturing partner," said S.S. Lim, Advent's chief executive officer. "Deja View's first product, the Model 100, is truly innovative

Deja View was founded in 2002 to design, manufacture and market a complete line of wearable camera products based on its own patent-pending video camcorder technology.

Advent Electronics Pte Ltd was founded in June 1999 as a privately owned joint venture company with Lion Asiapac Ltd, a publicly listed company in Singapore and subsidiary of the Lion Group, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate in Malaysia. Its business is franchise distribution of electronic components in the South Asia Pacific region (including India), and providing value-added outsourcing services to U.S. and European customers. Such original equipment manufacturer (OEM) services include design, prototyping, PCB/PCBA, ISO9001/2 test capabilities and final product manufacturing.

www.adventelectronics.com

www.mydejaview.com

The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's (NEMI, Herndon, VA) Component and Board Marking Project has made recommendations for the identification of electronic components and board assemblies that have been modified for use in lead-free assembly processes. The team has also identified standard vocabulary terms to create a common terminology related to lead-free processing.

The conversion to lead-free products poses challenges as companies deal with the logistics of handling leaded and lead-free products for manufacturing, rework and field returns. Lead-free processing requires higher temperatures and tighter process windows, which necessitates segregation of leaded and lead-free parts. For the immediate future, manufacturing facilities will be running both leaded and lead-free processes, and rework facilities will be running both processes for an even longer time. Manufacturers must identify lead-free parts and keep them segregated to ensure legislative compliance.

"To prevent manufacturing errors and defects, the assembly shop floor and recyclers need to identify the materials contained in the solders used in the bill of materials (BOM) and the board assembly process," said Vivek Gupta, program manager, Lead-Halogen Free Development for Intel Corp. and chair of the NEMI Component and Board Marking Project.

The NEMI team provided input and supported the development of JEDEC standard JESD97: Marking, Symbols and Labels for Identification of Lead-Free Assemblies, Components and Devices, which was released in May of this year. NEMI considers the identification model in this standard comprehensive enough to meet the needs of manufacturing.

In addition to the guidelines in the JEDEC standard, NEMI is recommending the use of unique part numbers for lead-free materials, components and boards to distinguish them from tin-lead versions.

"Manufacturers' part numbers are critical data elements used to keep track of bill of materials and products during manufacturing, inventory and order fulfillment," said Alan Ater, supply chain manager for Sanmina-SCI Corp. and co-chair of the Component and Board Marking Project. "Unique part numbers for lead-free BOMs will help minimize the chances of mixing tin-lead and lead-free parts."

NEMI has also developed three standard vocabulary terms in an effort to establish a common language for communication of lead-free transition status. The terms defined by NEMI are: Lead-free second level interconnect, Lead free and RoHS compliant. However, the project team decided not to develop a guideline for identification of RoHS compliance or the various phases of lead-free implementation.

The definitions have already been included in the RosettaNet dictionary of terms RNTD version 4.0 and have been proposed to IPC and JEDEC for inclusion in their dictionary of terms.

The recommendations are available at: http://www.nemi.org/projects/ese/Component_BoardMarking.html.

The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA, Minneapolis, MN) is again co-locating its annual conference, SMTA International, with the Assembly Tech Expo (ATExpo) show on Sept. 26-30 in Rosemont, Illinois.

For industry professionals who have an interest in contract manufacturing, the SMTA has organized the Contract Manufacturing Symposium to provide information necessary to form profitable relationships for the contract manufacturer, customer and investor. Organized by Lisa Hamburg Bastin, editor in chief of Circuits Assembly (a UP Media Group publication), the symposium will feature two paper sessions.

The first session, Managing the Business of EMS, will profile the type of manufacturing that will likely stay in North America, examine defense manufacturing outsourcing and the strategies contractors can employ to show significant productivity improvements, and debunk the myth that North American manufacturers must keep high margin, complex assemblies in North America. The second session, Supplier Engineering, will focus on elements of supplier engineering such as purchasing, lean manufacturing and supply chain management.

Papers presented during the symposium will include: Study Determines Types of Electronics Manufacturing Services to Remain in North America; Defense Electronics Manufacturing Outsourcing—Realities and Trends; Managing the Outsourcing of Complex Assemblies; What are the Challenges Involved in Migrating From Internal to External Engineering and What are Some of the Ways to Address These Challenges? Lean Culture Strategy Drives Cost Savings for OEMs; and When Global Sourcing Isn't World Class—Overcoming Sourcing Challenges in Emerging Markets.

http://www.smta.org/smtai/symposium.cfm

Teradyne Inc. (Boston, MA) announced that Harman Music Group (Salt Lake City, UT), a manufacturer of audio products, has selected a Teradyne Assembly Test Division test system as their transmission x-ray tester of choice. Harman Music Group has chosen to use the Teradyne XStation HS automatic x-ray inspection system exclusively for all manufacturing test in their Sandy, UT, facility.

Harman began using the system two years ago. Fast test times, averaging 20-30 seconds, enable the test system to keep pace with the manufacturing line which runs two shifts, seven days a week. Using only automated optical inspection (AOI) for component polarityand value checking up front and functional test before shipment, Harman relies solely on Teradyne's system to verify the integrity of their manufacturing process.

Harman was selected to beta test the new Xframe product, an integrated software development environment for the inspection system. The PC-based software program allows all programming to be performed off-line. The software provides flexibility by giving the user the ability to set thresholds rather than hard-coding them into the software. It deploys a new graphical user interface (GUI) and ensures data quality using an industry-standard Oracle database.

According to Paul Marconi, director of manufacturing for Harman, "We test 10,000 boards a month and are constantly seeking process improvements—the x-ray product is a major contributor to our success. Now, we will be able to quickly develop new test programs off-line whenever we bring new products into manufacturing."

The software provides fast program development time via built-in, GUI-driven inspection wizards based on the Red Hat Linux operating system. Employing D2B and Alchemist for CAD preparation, the software automatically generates measurement windows and thresholds. It uses built-in machine simulator software so that users can perform all inspection program debugging off-line, instead of on the system used in production. A centralized Oracle database is used to store and manage program data, ensuring consistent and fault-free data.

Harman Music Group designs, manufactures and markets signal-processing equipment for professional musicians, recording studios and sound system engineers. It markets its products under the brand names dbx, DigiTech, DOD and Lexicon Pro. The company is a subsidiary of Harman International Industries.

www.teradyne.com

www.harmanmusicgroup.com