Eindhoven, The Netherlands, April 8 -- Assembléon, has appointed APS France Equipments to represent its SMT placement line in France. APS is a member of the Propelec S.A. group, which represents Assembléon in Spain and Portugal.

Assembléon's director region Europe, Ton Cornelissen, said, "Propelec has a very positive attitude to the SMT market and to its customers ... We've shared a very satisfying relationship with the Propelec group in Spain, and have every confidence in the company's capability to represent us in France in cooperation with Assembléon France SAS."

ROUND ROCK, TX - Dell Computer said PC unit growth would slow to 10% for the first quarter, another sign of slowing IT demand for PCs. Demand in the U.S. has improved slightly, however, Dell told analysts gathered at its annual Analysts Day meeting this week.

 

Dell said its overall business is a little softer. Investment bank Deutsche Bank forecasts Dell's revenues to grow 16% in fiscal 2006.

 

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OYSTER BAY, NY - Most of the public attention given to RFID has focused on the retail supply chain, especially Wal-Mart's mandate to its top 100 suppliers. But the U.S. Department of Defense is also mandating its use this year - to all of its 43,000-plus suppliers. Add to that the needs of the aerospace industry, particularly the two giant aircraft makers, Boeing and Airbus, and the shape of a massive vertical RFID market emerges.

Boeing and Airbus - which use many of the same components - are working with the US Federal Aviation Administration to formalize UHF RFID certification for systems to track aircraft parts, says Erik Michielsen, ABI Research director of RFID and ubiquitous networks. The hoped-for improvement in ROI is of vital importance to an industry that has been hard-hit by recent economic conditions. Safer planes and fewer procurement overlaps are added incentives.

"The airline industry is obviously profit-based," Michielsen says. "They want efficient manufacturing, supply chain and asset tracking systems to create economical business models. With the DoD, RFID is not about business models: it's about improving military operations efficiency in acquiring materiel from suppliers and making sure it gets to units in the field. These are massive, aggressive and very complex initiatives that will be major factors driving RFID's adoption."

The first beneficiaries are the RFID suppliers who have been granted "Blanket Purchase Agreement" awards, certifying that their systems meet the DoD's requirements, ABI says. The first five companies in this favored position are UHF EPC Class 1 transponder suppliers Alien Technologies, Avery Dennison, CDO Technologies, Lowry Computer Products and Intermec. Other BPA awards are expected soon.

REDMOND, WA, April 7 -- Data I/O, a provider of manual and automated programming systems, has expanded its strategic alliance with Intel Corp. to provide flash memory programming solutions.
 
According to the company, wireless handset manufacturing companies are Data I/O's largest customer group and consume significant volumes of high-density flash memory devices. Multi-national customers require speedy, concurrent support in many different geographies.  Intel offers such support with its flash memory Programmer Evaluation Labs (PEL) located in Folsom, CA, and Cavite, the Philippines. These labs both use the Data I/O FlashPAK programming system.
 
"Intel Flash Memory devices are used by virtually all our major customers, and close cooperation with Intel strengthens our programming solutions," said Bruce Rodgers, VP of sales and marketing in Asia/Americas.
 
Peter Larsen, Intel programmer evaluation lab manager added: "Our [combined] efforts include rapid algorithm development for Intel Flash Memory components, optimized manufacturing programming performance on Data I/O platforms and quickly addressing the needs of our customers."