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Electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider Flextronics (Singapore) has awarded its eight top suppliers with its 2003 Global Supplier Performance Award.

As part of the annual event, Flextronics awarded suppliers who provided support in the areas of quality, total cost, global account management, supply chain and design.

"Our supply base delivered more than $11 billion in products and services to Flextronics for the 2003 calendar year," said Steve Martson, senior vice president and chief procurement officer of Flextronics. "Given the changing landscape of our business and important role suppliers play in our success, it's a pleasure to take this opportunity to recognize eight top suppliers for their outstanding performance."

Recipients of the 2003 awards include: Future Electronics, involved in the distribution and marketing of semiconductors and passive, interconnect and electro-mechanical components; KEMET Electronics Corp., a supplier of capacitor solutions, tantalum products, a MLCC product line and tantalum and aluminum organic polymer product offerings; KOA Corp., a supplier of surface-mount and through-hole resistors, tantalum chip capacitors, resistor networks, inductors, integrated components, circuit protection and EMI/EMC filtering components; Mitsui & Co., Ltd., a general trading company that maintains a global network of 195 offices in 86 countries, and has 746 subsidiaries and associated companies worldwide; ON Semiconductor, offering power- and data-management semiconductors and standard semiconductor components; ROHM Co. Ltd., a worldwide supplier of advanced electronic components; Texas Instruments Inc., providing DSP and analog technologies, sensors, controls and educational and productivity solutions; and Broad Technologies Inc., a printed circuit board manufacturer, producing over 1.5 million sq. ft. of PCBs per month.

www.flextronics.com

Purex International (Rotherham, UK), a manufacturer of fume extraction products, has appointed Paul Schofield in the role of customer support applications engineer. Schofield gained engineering experience during his time with the Royal Navy, GEC Marconi and BAE Systems.

The expansion of the engineering support department at Purex is due not only to a large increase in sales this year, but also because customers are benefiting from the close customer/supplier relationship encouraged by Purex.

Schofield said, "It is commonly accepted that if a process or task generates hazardous fumes, then to comply with occupational health and safety regulations a fume extraction system should be utilized. However, more and more customers who are purchasing fume extraction systems are asking us for engineering support as they try to reduce process costs, increase productivity and eliminate downtime."

Schofield can be contacted at: +44 (0)1709 763000.

www.purexltd.co.uk

Valor Computerized Systems (Yavne, Israel), a provider of productivity increasing engineering software solutions to the electronics design and manufacturing industry, announced that it has received orders for its Trilogy 5000 Assembly Engineering platform from Taiwanese original design manufacturer (ODM) Inventec.

Valor's decision to concentrate on the Far East as the largest emerging marketplace for outsourced electronics manufacturing services (EMS) has recently been affirmed through additional sales of the assembly platform to PC notebook, desktop and server manufactures in Taiwan, who are facing globalization challenges in the electronics manufacturing arena and need to offer trans-continental portability solutions to their internationally operating customer base.

"The new product introduction market in Taiwan is one of the most dynamic in the world, in terms of product types and products shipped," said Uri Michaelis, president of Valor Far East. "Taiwan manufacturers, as a whole, ship more than 65% of notebook PCs to the world markets. The fact that many Taiwanese manufacturers transfer production lines to China, makes it a key market in terms of defining the technology needs in Greater China."

Valor's Far East organization currently has five offices in Hong-Kong, Taiwan, South, East and North China, and expects to double its work force within the year.

www.inventec.com

www.valor.com

Digi-Key Corp. (Thief River Falls, MN) has announced the addition of Tim Sanghera as vice president of semiconductor products. Sanghera brings 15 years of experience in marketing, sales and technology expertise in the semiconductor industry. His mission will be to enhance the company's semiconductor product portfolio by working in concerted effort with its current supplier base.

Mark Larson, president, said "Digi-Key's strength in the semiconductor area is rapidly growing and we are pleased to have Tim's expertise as part of our team. His knowledge of the industry in general and semiconductors specifically makes him uniquely equipped to further drive sales growth for Digi-key semiconductor vendors."

Prior to joining Digi-Key, Sanghera was the Distribution Sales Manager for the America's at Winbond Electronics and was instrumental in business development and marketing for Mix Signal, uC, Non-Volatile, I/O and Memory products. Before that, he held positions at Sharp Electronics as part of the Distribution Sales Team, including marketing of key LCD, Opto, Memory and ARM based products. In total, Sanghera has spent more than 15 years in the Semiconductor Industry in various management positions responsible for the company's corporate and product line marketing, strategy development and corporate technology programs.

Digi-Key Corp. is a full service provider of prototype/design as well as volume production quantities of electronic components.

www.digikey.com

The first annual International Wafer-Level Packaging Congress (IWLPC), co-sponsored by the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA, Minneapolis, MN), will be presented at the San Jose Doubletree Inn, San Jose, CA, on Oct. 10-12. The congress includes three days of technical programming and two full days of exhibits presented by suppliers to the semiconductor packaging and testing industry.

Dr. W.R. "Bill" Bottoms, chairman of Third Millennium Test Solutions, will present the dinner keynote speech on October 11. The title of his address is "Wafer-Level Packaging: Why and Why Not?" With a Ph.D. from Tulane University, Dr. Bottoms has an extensive background in academia, venture funding and in the commercial semiconductor equipment sector.

After receiving his doctorate in physics, Dr. Bottoms joined the electrical engineering faculty of Princeton University, where he remained until 1976. He then joined Varian Associates in Palo Alto, CA, as manager of research and development, and he was later named president of Varian's newly formed semiconductor equipment group. After leaving Varian, he was senior vice president and general partner at Patricof & Co.

Ventures Inc., an international venture capital firm. He founded Third Millennium Test Solutions in March 1999.

Dr. Bottoms has also served on a number of government and industry committees and advisory positions, including chairmanship of the subcommittee of the Technical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commerce Department's Export Control Commission for Semiconductor Equipment and Materials.

Joseph Fjelstad, co-founder of SiliconPipe Inc., and Dr. Ken Gilleo of ET-Trends LLC will co-chair the technical program. Both are widely known speakers on semiconductor packaging and interconnection topics. In addition to its focus on wafer-level packaging, the congress will explore many topics in chip-scale packaging and other advanced packaging processes.

www.smta.org

Dow Corning Corp. (Midland, MI), a provider of silicon-based technology, has launched a partnering approach specifically designed to help electronics industry customers solve business problems and seize emerging opportunities. The Electronic Solutions initiative expands the company's value proposition beyond materials and signals a significant shift in the company's business strategy.

Drawing on its 60 years as a materials manufacturer and the capabilities of its partners throughout the electronics industry, Dow Corning can now help customers meet many business challenges, including product and application development; materials, process and equipment integration; facilities design and engineering; and supply chain management (including environmental, health and safety capabilities).

The company has also tapped Arthur Hanlon to lead the solutions strategy. In this role, Hanlon oversees the development of customer-centered solutions across Dow Corning's semiconductor, packaging, systems assembly and subsystems assembly market segments, including emerging business programs.

To date, Dow Corning has helped many companies throughout the electronics industry overcome specific business challenges, including factory and geographic expansions, supply chain optimization, equipment procurement and product research and development.

"Where we once had limited points of contact with customers, typically between our sales person and the company's procurement department, we now interface with companies on multiple levels," said Tom Cook, executive director. "Our engineers work with customers' engineers to troubleshoot process problems on their manufacturing lines, our scientists support customers' scientists in creating new formulations, R&D teams help customers' brand managers create new markets and our business development leaders work with our customer's business owners to outline and develop proposals to meet their significant business challenges."

www.dowcorning.com/electronics