ATLANTA, GA, Sept. 23 — More than 50 exhibiting companies will display and demonstrate their products, services and technologies for the PCB design industry during the ninth annual PCB Design Conference East 2004.

Scheduled for October 4-8 at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, NH, the event includes a two-day exhibition and a five-day conference of technical courses centered around the theme: "Education for Your Most Pressing Design Challenges: Including Lead-Free, Embedded Components, High Speed and PCB Design Fundamentals."

Special events that are free to registered attendees include "The Impact of Lead-Free on PCB Design" keynote address by Joseph Fjelstad, a co-founder of Silicon Valley startup SiliconPipe and Tessera's first fellow; an opening night reception in the exhibit hall; and the Brew-ha-ha Party at Jillian's in downtown Manchester, featuring food, drink and music by the Porch Dawgs (an infamous blues band made up of musically-inclined PCB industry professionals).

The following products and/or services are among the many to be featured at the show:

·            Calumet Electronics Corp. (Booth 302) will feature lead-free surface coatings, including an electroless nickel/immersion gold (KAT Process) alternative to HASL and Presa RGA-14, an immersion silver process.

·            ChipData's (Booth 120) PkgXpert 2.5 helps electronic OEMs and contract manufacturers to streamline the board manufacturing process by creating a specification-driven, standardized package geometry library that can be shared and regenerated whenever specifications change.

·            Dynamic Details (Booth 119) will feature Stacked Microvia Technology (SMV), which improves routing density and design flexibility.

·            Intercept Technology (Booth 101) will demonstrate and announce the release of Pantheon v5.0, Mozaix v2.1 and INDX v2.1.

·          Polar Instruments (Booth 105) will feature the enhanced stackup builder SB200a v2.0, which now interfaces to the industry standard Si800m impedance solver to offer brilliant stackup graphics plus stack, drill and impedance data in a variety of file and print formats. A free reader allows users to easily share this high quality stackup presentation with anyone.

·          Sovereign Circuits (Booth 214) will feature the addition of immersion silver finish to their product offerings.

·          T-Tech (Booth 201) will feature QC Trace Cam, an integrated inspection system specifically for applications requiring magnified inspection area. Easy to install, QC Trace Cam allows real-time viewing of traces.

·          Zuken USA (Booth 202) will feature CADSTAR 7, a PCB Desktop Solution that delivers a powerful price/performance package for PC-based PCB design. Zuken USA also will feature CR-5000, which incorporates the latest technology requirements (embedded components, RF design and design re-use) within a constrained design process methodology.

www.pcbeast.com

Terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close within 30 days.

The transaction includes the assets and employees of Power Systems.

BOSTON, Sept. 20, 2004 — Teradyne Inc. today cut its outlook for the September quarter, citing lower customer spending.

"Our customers are reducing their spending in the face of what appears to be an industry-wide slowdown," said Michael Bradley, president and CEO. "As a result, we are now projecting third quarter shipments to be between $450 million and $470 million. Our earnings per share are now expected to be between 21 and 26 cents, on a diluted basis."

Teradyne had previously projected sales of between $530 million to $560 million for the third quarter, with earnings per share projected to be between 39 and 46 cents.

Teradyne will report third quarter results on Oct. 19.

Mentor Links PADS to Outside Libraries
09-23-2004

by Mike Buetow

WILSONVILLE, OR, Sept. 22 -— A pair of component libraries will now be available within Mentor Graphics' PADS PCB design flow.

Under a just announced agreement, PADS design tool users will have access to symbol and footprint databases of Optimum Design Associates (optimumdesign.com) and PCB Libraries (pcblibraries.com).

The arrangement should cut library creation times for users, Mentor said.

"Optimum and PCB Libraries allow direct interaction with suppliers of quality component symbols and footprints," said Syed Gilani, PADS general manager, in a press statement. This access can translate into significant time and resource savings as the designer will not need to develop libraries from scratch for use within the PADS flow."

Rhode Island -- AIM has appointed Cluff and Associates as manufacturers' rep for the company's line of solders and related assembly materials in Colorado.

Cluff & Associates, headquartered in Denver, CO, specializes in sales, service and customer support for electronic production materials and equipment.