The National Physical Laboratory seeks papers for its "Electronics Assembly" conference and exhibition to be held July 13 at NPL's Teddington, UK, facility.
A program committee, drawn from university and industry members, will review submitted papers in a range of disciplines, including: emerging technologies, components, assembly, lead-free and business trends.
It now poses the "Top 37 Questions" giving answers and offering advice on a range of topics relevant to lead-free soldering, including the WEEE/RoHS directives, compliance, solder replacements, equipment upgrades, component compatibility, reliability and training.
HARRISBURG, PA - Tyco Electronics Corp. will close its Austin PCB manufacturing plant by July 1, and lay off about 190 employees, according to a news article.
Mike Ratcliff, a spokesman for Tyco,
told a local paper that work from the 240,000 sq.-ft. plant will be transfered to
other Tyco plants. The Austin location has stopped taking orders for
PCBs but will fulfill existing orders.
"The printed circuit group has been
evaluating how best to operate the business, reduce costs where
possible and eliminate duplication," Ratcliff says. "It's a competitive
industry."
Tyco purchased the plant from Raytheon, which in turn obtained it through a large purchase of the defense business from Texas Instruments.
There has been no report at this time of other Tyco operations closing down.
TOKYO -- Kyocera Corp.
has made plans to outsource its cell phone production in North America
to Flextronics International and cut 1,700 jobs at its mobile phone
division to turn the loss-making business around.
The latest restructuring follows
Kyocera's announcement in March that it will quit its struggling
digital camera operations this year. The company will outsource
production at U.S. unit Kyocera Wireless Corp. to Flextronics from late
May.
BOSTON -- Nepcon East, the longtime expo for electronics
assembly, took place under chilly conditions in Boston. But that didn't
deter decent-sized crowds from checking out the latest equipment and
materials.
The biggest exhibitors were Universal, Assembleon and Bosch
Rexroth. Some notable local
suppliers chose to forego exhibiting while competitors made the trip to
Boston. For example, of the three leading screen printer suppliers in
North America, NJ-based DEK exhibited, although Speedline Technologies and EKRA America, both of which are based in the Boston suburbs, did not.
Numerous bare-board fabrication (MEI, Bare Board Group, Circuit Connect, Printed Circuit Corp., Sierra Proto Systems) and assembly companies (Masstech EMS and LightSpeed Manufacturing among others) were on hand. Most told Circuits Assembly that business growth was modest year-to-date and orders for lead-free boards were few and far between.
Among the highlights:
Juki Automation, the second leading seller of placement
machines worldwide, rolled out a pair of selective soldering units.
Called the 300L and 400L, the machines come with internal spray or
drop-jet fluxers, nozzles ranging from 4 mm to 30 mm and preheat
capability, and the 400L has a three-stage inline system for high-speed
automated soldering. The 400L can also be customized for three
miniwaves or a combination of one miniwave and one full wave.
Datron Dynamics, a
supplier of milling and routing equipment for assemblers, showed off
its new low-cost (under
$47,000) CNC machine for milling and engraving. The mini-Raptor has a
51 x 51" footprint and comes with a 60,000 rpm spindle, a solid granite
table and a 3-tool changer feed. It is said to reach rates up to 400"
per minute.
Excelta is offering the Smart Tweezer, a slick little device that among other things IDs the capacitance,
resistance or inductance of the surface mount device being picked up.
Once a major convention in its own right, the expo
has morphed into a solid regional show. It was in its third location in
three years, having shifted this
year to the brand new Boston
Convention Center, a
mammoth (510,000 sq. ft.) hall located on a pier just east of downtown.
Official attendance numbers have not yet been released.
Oyster Bay, NY -- Annual global sales of "dual-mode"
mobile phones -- which can connect to either a conventional cellular
service or a Wi-Fi network -- are likely to exceed 100 million by 2010,
according to a new study by ABI Research.
Dual-mode
handsets have been virtually unknown to consumers until recently, and
have not penetrated the enterprise space to any degree either.
But
according to ABI Research senior analyst Philip Solis, some of the
giants of global telecommunications -- notably British Telecom and
Korea Telecom -- plan to offer dual-mode services by the end of 2005.
That could start a very large ball rolling.
"The advantages of
dual mode handsets and services, when they arrive, can be summed up in
two words: seamless and economical," Solis said. Though the full
spectrum of capabilities won't appear in the first generation of
products, when these services are mature you will be able to start a
phone call at home (connecting to residential Wi-Fi network and then
broadband VOIP phone service), continue it in your car (switching to
your cellular provider's network) and wind it up at work (phone
switches to 802.11 LAN, and VoIP). The handset would sense the
available signals and switch automatically from one network mode to
another.
Anaheim, CA -- DDi Corp. reported first quarter 2005 sales of $44.9 million, up 2% sequentially but down 7% year-on-year.
The decrease is related to a reduction in the number of PCB layers shipped, reflecting a softer market. Partially offsetting the decline in PCB sales was a $1.8 million increase in net sales from the quick-turn assembly operation.
Despide the limited PCB growth, president and CEO Bruce McMaster added that March PCB bookings were at their highest level since October 2003.
Gross profit for the quarter was $8 million, up from $5.6 million for the first quarter 2004, due to a $6 million decrease in non-cash compensation charges and intangibles from the prior year. Excluding non-cash charges, adjusted gross profit increased sequentially by $0.5 million on the $0.9 million increase in sequential net sales.
The company reported net income of $9.7 million from discontinued operations, primarily due to a $11.1 million non-cash gain on the disposition of DDi Europe.
DDi announced that it will close its Arizona plant to shift production of mass lamination cores back to its four North American PCB plants. It is also closing is Corporate Support Center in Colorado Springs to streamline operations from its Anaheim headquarters.