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BOSTON, Sept. 30 -- Some of the greatest technology minds gathered this week in Boston to discuss innovation, yet the talk continually turned to something much more mundane: standards.

Noted luminaries ranging from a senior R&D executive at IBM to the man credited with creating the Worldwide Web agreed that standards and innovation go hand-in-hand, and that more attention needs to be paid to ensuring standards for new technologies are open.

Speaking to an audience of about 500 at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, said it's "very important" that stakeholders protect the Web from being "tripped up by software patents." And Paul Horn, senior VP of IBM Research, called open standards "critical for speedy innovation at a company, in an ecosystem, in the country."

Horn decried those who seek IP protection, at the cost of slowing innovation. "Success in R&D requires rapid flow of innovation into the marketplace. Time to market is critical." Universities that elbow aside businesses seeking to partner on R&D because of worries over IP rights strain new products, too, he said.

Berners-Lee noted that patent licensing royalties form a barrier for companies that develop new technology. "You could never find out what patent could possibly apply to what technology," he said.

Berners-Lee now directs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open forum of companies and organizations that develop Web standards. W3C advocates a royalty-free standards policy for patent licensing.

Most of the technology discussion over the two-day event centered on software advancements - and, as in the case of standards, potential hurdles. While there was talk of nanotechnology and outsourcing - with speakers brushing aside concerns over regional job loss as a natural result of bringing lower cost product to market, what the conference didn't cover in depth was potential new manufacturing techniques.

Solectron's Q4 Loss Narrows
10-01-2004

by Mike Buetow

MILPITAS, CA, Sept. 28 -- Solectron Corp. saw its fiscal fourth-quarter loss narrow on a strong increase in sales. The company reported a loss of $2.4 million on sales of $3 billion for the quarter ended Aug. 31.

Last year, the EMS maker reported a loss of $179 million on revenue of $2.44 billion. Excluding items, earnings from continuing operations were 4 cents a share in the latest period, reversing a loss of 6 cents a share, and in line with analysts' expectations and company guidance.

Solectron guided for November quarter earnings, before items, of 4 to 6 cents a share on sales of $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion.

Solectron chief executive Michael Cannon said company strength in the markets for networking equipment and set-top boxes, offset by weakness in computing, storage, wireline infrastructure and third-generation cellphones.

For the year, the company reported a loss of $168.9 million on revenue of $11.6 billion. In the same period last year, it reported a loss of $3.45 million on revenue of $9.83 billion.

SAN JOSE, Oct. 1 - Flextronics was the world's largest EMS firm in 2003, with revenues of $13.8 billion, Reed Research Group said today.

Solectron was number two at 11.1 billion, followed by Sanmina-SCI($10.8 billion), Celestica ($6.7 billion) and Jabil Circuit ($5.2 billion).

The rest of the top 10 were: Finland-based Elcoteq ($2.8 billion), Venture of Singapore ($1.9 billion), Benchmark Electronics ($1.8 billion), Taiwan's Universal Scientific Industrial ($1.2 billion) and Plexus (841 million).

No. 11 Manufacturers' Services Ltd. ($825 million) has since merged with Celestica. The complete list of the top 100 can be linked to at: www.reed-electronics.com/eb-mag/article/CA447588?nid=2017&rid=231544418.

SAN JOSE, Sept. 30 - The worldwide 90-day moving average sales of semiconductors grew to $18.2 billion in August, an increase of 1.1% over July, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported today. Meanwhile, IC makers are responding quickly to reports of excess inventories, SIA asserted.

Sales increased 34.2% from last August, in line with historical patterns.

"Semiconductor producers and their customers have reacted with unprecedented speed to recent reports of excess chip inventories," said SIA president George Scalise, in a press statement. "In previous market cycles, it has generally taken several quarters for the supply chain to take corrective action. When the first reports of excess inventory accumulation surfaced in the second quarter, both producers and customers moved quickly to adjust.

A pair of research groups, VLSI Research and iSuppli, are now reporting that chip inventories are declining, Scalise said.

Capital spending at IC makers is about 23% of sales, in line with historical patterns, SIA said. "At this time, we do not believe overcapacity will be a major concern in 2005," SIA said.

SIA reiterated its forecast of 28% growth for 2004. Its 2005 industry forecast will be released Nov. 3.

Sales of PCs and equipment for networking and telecommunications contributed to semiconductor growth in August. Sales of microprocessors increased 3.5% sequentially, reflecting PC sales patterns of the back-to-school season.

Chip sales were up modestly in all geographic regions. In Asia-Pacific, sales increased just 0.1% sequentially, reflecting the impact of inventory adjustment actions taken by OEMs, SIA said.

NEW YORK, Oct. 1 -- Flextronics is poised to gain market share from competitors Sanmina-SCI and Solectron, says an analyst who met with the EMS maker yesterday.

Thanks to a combination of the lowest-cost footprint and the most robust design offering in the industry, Flextronics is evolving into a design and component manufacturer that also offers EMS services, wrote Chris Whitmore, an analyst with Deutsche Bank's Equity Research group. In fact, wrote Whitemore, Flextronics "suggested that it could give away the assembly business for free if customers opted to use its competitively priced components."

"We remain confident in Flextronics` long-term vision and strategic direction," Whitmore wrote. He said Flextronics' vertical strategy and low-cost assets is "driving its customers' costs lower --faster than anyone else in the industry."

In other news from the analyst day, Flextronics said it is in the process of consolidating roughly $1.3 billion of business from other EMS suppliers into its existing manufacturing facilities, to the detriment of Sanmina-SCI and Solectron, according to DB.

NORTHBROOK, IL, Aug. 27 -- August orders for rigid circuit boards rose 8.7% while demand for flex circuits showed signs of weakness, according to the latest 90-day moving average of North American manufacturers.

"Both rigid and flex shipments are rebounding from the recession and are showing strong growth, but flex is growing at a faster rate than rigid," IPC said in a press release.

For all board types, shipments rose 33.6% and bookings were up 9.8% vs. a year ago, said IPC, which administers the monthly poll. The figures may include some sales of products built offshore and brokered by the surveyed companies.

The August book-to-bill ratio was 1.05 for rigid, up 0.06 points sequentially. The B2B for flex circuits fell precipitously, from 1.57 last month to 0.98 in August.

The book-to-bill for all board types rose fell 0.06 points to 1.04.

The ratio is calculated by averaging the number of orders booked over the past three months and dividing by the average sales billed during the same period. A ratio of 1.04 means that for every $100 in shipments, $104 worth of PCBs were booked. An increasing ratio is generally considered a sign of a market poised to rise.

Year-to-date shipments are up 34.7% and bookings are up 38%. Combined August shipments rose 13.8% sequentially, while bookings fell 0.3%.

August rigid shipments were up 21.9% and bookings 8.7% over last year. Year-to-date, rigid shipments are up 25.1% and bookings are up 21.1%. Among those surveyed, rigid shipments rose 15.2% sequentially and bookings were 7.6% higher.

August flex shipments were up 75.2% yet bookings slumped, falling 19.3% vs. last year. Year-to-date, flex shipments are up 77.4% and bookings 100.7%. Sequentially, flex shipments rose 8.5% and bookings dropped 27.1%.

Flex sales, which include some value-added services, make up about 17% of total PCB sales in the IPC poll.

The data come from a sample of North American rigid and flexible PCB manufacturers.

Jersey City, NJ, Sept. 20 - With the cost of a key constituent of fluxes rising sharply, Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials will hike prices for IPA-based fluxes.

Come November, Cookson will raise IPA flux prices 70 cents per gallon, in response to the volatility of petrochemical prices on the world market. The company said that isopropyl alcohol prices have risen 78% since June 2003

"Faced with this significant rise in petrochemical-based solvent prices, we were forced to announce this limited price increase on alcohol-based flux products," said Mitch Holtzer, global product manager-flux products.

Cookson said the decision would not affect pricing for its water-based VOC-free flux line.