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IRVINE, CA – Henkel Corp. named the executive team that will lead its electronics group, following its acquisition of the Adhesives and Electronics Materials businesses from National Starch and Chemical Co.

Under the direction of corporate senior VP Alan Syzdek, the electronics group of Henkel will be organized on a global basis by industry sector.

Dr. Michael Todd will lead Henkel’s global product development initiatives as vice-president of product development and engineering, with more than 18 years’ materials development experience.

Former Ablestik general manager, Andreas Mader, has been tapped to head Henkel’s semiconductor group.

To direct its electronics assembly business, the company has selected former Emerson & Cuming general manager Joe DeBiase. DeBiase has more than 20 years’ experience in electronic materials for the PCB fabrication and electronic assembly industries.

Rounding out the executive appointments is Doug Dixon, global marketing director.

Management of the operational organization is the responsibility of Dr. Michael Reilly, former National Starch vice-president of global operations.

Overseeing the development of the business is the role of Zhiwei Cai, former Henkel global vice-president of product management.

Other key appointments to the leadership team include Luc Godefroid, who heads the project management office, and Hilary Norris, who leads the company’s financial team.

ALBANY, NY – IBM Corp. will invest $1.5 billion in Albany and will build a semiconductor plant somewhere in upstate New York.

The investment is expected to increase research jobs to 325 at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. The state government is providing $25 million for new semiconductor equipment at that site.

In addition, the company will construct a 120,000 sq. ft. semiconductor packaging center at a location to be determined. Albany NanoTech will own and manage the facility, which reportedly will create more than 675 jobs.

In total, the state will spend $140 million, with IBM investing more than $10 for every $1 that New York spends, say published reports.

MILTON, NY – Sono-Tek Corp. today reported first-quarter sales of $1.62 million, up 31% year-over-year.

The company attributes the increase to its business development program and sales of newer products that are part of this program.

The company reported a net loss of $130,458 for the quarter, compared to net income of $19,914 for the prior year period.

The loss is attributed to investment in the above mentioned business development program.

Dr. Christopher L. Coccio, Sono-Tek’s chairman and CEO, said, “ … we expect to create future growth opportunities for the company over the next year or two with these investments. We are actively creating new business in the alternative energy market for fuel cell and solar cell coatings, medical device coatings, glass coatings, textile coatings, and food and food packaging coatings.”

AESCH, SWITZERLAND – Manufacturer of SMT production equipment, Essemtec has increased its production capacity and office space by more than 1220 sq. meters.

The new two-story building contains an FLX and CSM production department on the ground floor.

Approximately every two years, Essemtec has increased its headquarters’ production space here.

SAN FRANCISCO – SEMI anticipates global semiconductor equipment sales of $34 billion in 2008, down 20% year-over-year.

Survey respondents see the equipment market growing 13% in 2009 to $38.6 billion, and reaching just more than $41 billion by 2010.

China will hold steady in terms of equipment spending this year, but all other markets will be down from their 2007 levels, says SEMI. Taiwan, the largest equipment market last year, will drop 37% to $6.7 billion in 2008, but is forecasted to bounce back next year with 53% growth. North America will decline 13% to $5.7 billion, according to the forecast.

Wafer processing equipment will fall 20.5% to $25 billion, says the firm. The market for test equipment is expected to decline 20% to just over $4 billion this year, while the assembly and packaging equipment segment will fall 14% to $2.4 billion.

Since the semiconductor business has become a consumer-driven industry, it needs to handle short-run, rapid-change products to accommodate the short lifecycles of the consumer market; smaller fabs are better suited for this, according to SEMI.

R&D dollars for device shrinks, new processes and new materials are highly constrained and must be invested where they will offer a positive return, the firm adds.

The change to a larger wafer size in itself does not lead to significantly reduced costs. Intel found this was the case in the changeover from 150 mm to 200 mm, and the same will be true in going to 450 mm. Overall cost reductions for 300 mm wafers were brought about by higher usage of factory automation, the use of mini-environments or FOUPs, and savings brought on by stopping work on 200 mm node advancement, says SEMI.

Separately, in the keynote at Semicon West today, Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said one of the hottest end-product markets is mobile communications, SEMI points out.

The global handset market has reached about 1.2 billion units and is expected to grow to 1.6 billion by 2012. Entry level phones – those selling round $20 – will grow at the fastest rate, accounting for about half the handset total by 2012, according to Clifford.

The entry-level phone market is being driven by demand in China and India, and the market will continue to grow as those consumers move up the ladder to more feature rich phones, he said. He said currently there are about 800 million people in rural China who are not serviced by mobile phones – and each month 5 to 7 million phone subscribers are added in China.

In India’s market, the price of handsets has come down from $99 to around $22, giving millions of people access to information via the Internet, said Clifford.

ST. LOUIS – LaBarge Inc. has been awarded a $1.7 million contract from Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to continue to provide printed circuit card assemblies for various models of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

The award extends the firm’s involvement in the program through January 2010.

Production is taking place at LaBarge’s Tulsa facility.