SOLIHULL, UK – Hundreds of workers reportedly walked out of Fujitsu’s electronics factory here to protest plans to move several dozen jobs to the US.
Representatives of the local union said 24-hour strike was the result of failed negotiations with plant management. The union wants to head off the transfer of some 150 jobs to a plant in Texas, reports said.
TOKYO -- Juki Corp. celebrated its 70th anniversary this week by announcing the sale of its 20,000th placement machine.
Just ahead of the Protec trade show, one of the world's largest for assembly, Juki celebrated its December 1938 founding by 900 machine makers located in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The companies
formed Tokyo Juki Manufacturers Association in Kokuryo-Cho, Chofu-City,
Tokyo. (It was renamed in September 1943.)
The company also announced the donation of 8 million yen to the Chinese
government and China Red Cross in the name of the Sichuan earthquake
survivors.
Last week at the SMT/Hybrid/Packaging trade show in Nuremburg, Germany, the company sold a reported 10 machines.
Overall, Juki sells more than 200 placement machines each month, president Bob Black reportedly said.
PROVIDENCE, RI – The Rhode Island Senate has passed four
recycling bills aimed at reducing the amount of trash disposed in state dumps.
Passage of three of the bills is pending the House
Environment and Natural Resources Committee. A fourth, which covers disposal of electronics, is in the House Finance Committee.
The Senate e-waste bill requires manufacturers to
take back and recycle household electronics products. A similar House
bill is with the state Finance Committee.
EL SEGUNDO, CA – iSuppli Corp. forecasts the total flexible display market will reach $2.8 billion by 2013, up 35 times from about $80 million in 2007.
Flexible displays are being used for a multitude of products, including e-readers/e-paper, electronic display cards, electronic shelf labels, automotive applications, clothing/wearable displays, removable storage devices and point-of-purchase/public signage and advertisements.
“Flexible displays are intuitively appealing to end users and product designers because of their ruggedness, thinness, light weight and novelty,” said Jennifer Colegrove, Ph.D., senior analyst for emerging displays at iSuppli. “Such displays also offer manufacturers the potential for inexpensive fabrication because they can be made using new printing methods or roll-to-roll processing. Furthermore, flexible displays have the advantage of easy and relatively inexpensive shipping and safety handling compared to conventional rigid screens. When flexible displays break, they don’t have any sharp edges that can cause injuries or further damage.”
Before this year, there were no active matrix flexible displays that could provide the kind of image quality that users expect from their LCD-TVs and PC monitors, says iSuppli. Because of this, 2008 represents “Year One” for the AM flexible display market.
More than a dozen display technologies can be made into flexible screens, including traditional LCD, bi-stable LCD, OLED, electrophoretic, electrochromic and Electroluminescent.
LIMERICK, IRELAND – The deadline is approaching to register for iNEMI’s European workshop for the 2009 Roadmap, scheduled for June 18 at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium. The European workshop is the second of three being held worldwide to solicit industry input and feedback. (The third is scheduled for July 28, in Shanghai.)
iNEMI (International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) is an industry-led consortium and its roadmap, published every two years, is a key part of the organization’s strategy for identifying and closing technology and infrastructure gaps within the electronics manufacturing supply chain. The iNEMI roadmap has become recognized as an important tool for defining the state-of-the-art in the electronics industry as well as identifying emerging and disruptive technologies. It helps set priorities for research and development over the next 10 years, and is not only used by industry but also by government agencies that fund technology R&D and university-based research programs.
The workshops give participants an “in-progress” look at information from drafts of key roadmap chapters. They also allow industry to provide important input and feedback, making sure that the final roadmap addresses global issues and areas of concern.
While many industry roadmaps focus on one particular segment or technology area, such as semiconductors or substrates, the iNEMI roadmap takes a system approach and covers the many technologies and infrastructure areas required for electronics manufacturing. The 2009 Roadmap will cover five product sectors and 22 technology and business process areas.
The European workshop will include the following topics:
· Medical product sector.
· Portable/consumer product sector.
· Environmentally conscious electronics.
· Solid state illumination and photovoltaics (new in the 2009 Roadmap).
· Organic and printed electronics.
· Board assembly.
· Final assembly.
· Interconnect substrates – organic and ceramic.
· Packaging.
The registration fee is $300 (waived for iNEMI members, workshop speakers and government officials). This fee covers participation in the workshop, including a continental breakfast, lunch, and a copy of the 2009 iNEMI Roadmap CD when published in March 2009.
The registration deadline for the European workshop is June 12. For additional information about, or to register for, the workshop, click here.