News

Vitronics Soltec (Oosterhout, the Netherlands) has announced the schedule for their third annual European seminar tour, "Lead-Free Soldering: How Ready Are You . . . Really?" With the July 1, 2006 deadline for conversion to lead-free soldering rapidly approaching in Europe, this tour is designed to help electronics assemblers accelerate their conversion efforts to be ready and compliant on time.

The 2004 tour is based on Vitronics Soltec's "5 Steps to Lead-Free Soldering" program, includes the company's latest findings and addresses the lead-free process for all three automated soldering processes: reflow, wave and selective soldering.

In the morning sessions, highlights of the "5 Steps" program will be covered, including backward and forward compatibility within lead-free processing, effect of cooling rate on solder joint structure, compatibility of equipment materials with new alloys and many case studies illustrating challenges, pitfalls and success stories drawn from real life.

Other sessions include Success Factors for Lead-Free Wave Soldering, Conversion to Lead-Free Selective Soldering, High Speed Lead-Free Reflow Soldering, Lead-Free Cause and Effects, 5 Steps User Information and an interactive session whereby detailed presentations will be given on topics chosen by the attendees.

The seminar schedule is as follows:

September 2004

07 - UK, Manchester

09 - Ireland, Limerick

14 - Portugal, Porto

15 - Spain, Terrassa

16 - France, Rennes

21 - Hungary, Szekesfehervar

22 - Austria, Vienna

23 - Slovenia, Kranj

28 - Germany, Hannover

29 - Germany, Würzburg

30 - Switzerland, Zürich

October 2004

11 - Italy, Padova

12 - Italy, Bergamo

13 - Italy, Fiuggi

14 - France, Archamps

19 - Poland, Gdansk

20 - Denmark, Arhus

21 - Sweden, Stockholm

26 - Finland, Espoo

28 - Benelux, Oosterhout

29 - Benelux, Oosterhout

November 2004

02 - Turkey, Istanbul

04 - Czech Republic, Brno

For more information or to register online, visit www.vitronics-soltec.com.

The impact of lead-free solders on printed circuit board (PCB) design will be the cornerstone of the keynote address at PCB Design Conference East 2004 in Manchester, NH. In his keynote on October 5, Joe Fjelstad will cover materials, feature design and finishes likely to be impacted by the switch to lead-free boards

Fjelstad is the well-known cofounder of SiliconPipe, a Silicon Valley IP firm dedicated to extending the limits of copper-based circuit technology.

"While some PCB designers believe the move to lead-free will have no effect on the way they design boards, others predict that lead-free will affect the designer's job at every level," said Fjelstad. "As a concerned designer, what can you do to ensure that your designs will be sufficiently robust to survive lead-free assembly and the operational environment for which the design was intended?"

Fjelstad has more than 30 years of international experience in electronic interconnection and packaging technology. Before founding SiliconPipe, Fjelstad was the first fellow of Tessera, the chip packaging firm. He is author or editor of several books and numerous articles on electronics manufacturing. Fjelstad is also a prodigious inventor, with more than 150 U.S. patents issued or pending.

"We are thrilled that Joe Fjelstad will deliver the keynote address at PCB East 2004," said UP Media Group (Atlanta, GA) president Pete Waddell. "His experience and knowledge make him the perfect person to deliver a keynote that complements this year's conference theme: ‘Education for Your Most Pressing PCB Design Challenges, Including Lead-Free, Embedded Components, High Speed and PCB Design Fundamentals.' "

A number of conference courses also focus on lead-free, currently the hottest issue in PCB design, manufacture and assembly.

The keynote address is free for all conference and exhibition-only registrants; however, space is limited. Interested parties are urged to register for the keynote online at www.pcbeast.com.

The Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA, Minneapolis, MN) has announced the program for the International Wafer Level Packaging Congress on Oct. 10-12 in San Jose, CA. The program is now available live on the SMTA Web site.

The exhibition will track leading-edge IC packaging and test technologies with special emphasis on 3-D stacked packaging. It includes a three-day technical program and two days of exhibits presented by leading suppliers to the semiconductor packaging and testing industry.

Full details on the courses, technical sessions and special events can be found at: http://www.smta.org/iwlpc/.

Valor Computerized Systems (Yavne, Israel), a provider of manufacturing productivity solutions to the electronics industry, announced that IPC (Northbrook, IL) has recognized the company with its Special Recognition Award. This award, presented on behalf of the printed circuit board (PCB) and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry, their suppliers and customers, is in appreciation of Valor's commitment in developing IPC-2581, Generic Requirements for Printed Board Assembly Products Manufacturing Description Data and Transfer Methodology, and its donation of the ODB++ (X) format.

"By generously donating their ODB++ format to the IPC committee working on IPC-2581 and by providing volunteer committee support from their development group in Israel, Valor made tremendous contributions to the development of this new standard and notably displayed its dedication to the industry," said David Bergman, IPC's vice president of standards and technology. "The time and travel commitment to the two-year standard was significant on Valor's behalf, and IPC would like to recognize Valor's efforts to and support of the industry."

The standard is the result of three years of a collaborative industry initiative, initially started by the National Electronic Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) and followed by IPC's standardization effort. The standard is in XML schema and was built on Valor's ODB++ format, with added data concepts from IPC's GenCAM standard (IPC-2511B).

www.valor.com

www.ipc.org

IPC (Northbrook, IL) recently presented Mateusz Czerw, Eric Li and Edwin Moy with $500 scholarships from the IPC Electronics Assembly Scholarship Fund, an endowment the association established to support the electronics program of Curie Metropolitan High School in Chicago, IL. IPC also donated $1,000 to the school for additional educational materials and equipment for Curie's electronics program.

In addition to maintaining a 3.0 GPA in electronics, sustaining a 90% attendance record and establishing a history of achievement in electronics at the school, the students were selected by Curie's electronics instructor, technical department counselor and education-to-careers coordinator for submitting exemplary written essays that described their post-secondary educational plans and future career goals.

"IPC has always valued education and we will continue to support efforts that grant students an opportunity to further their training in the electronics field," said IPC president Denny McGuirk.

In 2003, Circuits Assembly magazine and Technology Forecasters financed the $10,000 fund through a portion of entry fees from past Service Excellence Awards programs. IPC donates $2,500 each year to the career academy that includes a magnet school for the arts, a vocational/technical program and an international baccalaureate program.

IPC selected Curie Metropolitan High School as the sole beneficiary because of the school's three-year industrial electronics course that gives students work-oriented, hands-on experience using the latest advancements in business and technology. Curie is one of the only high schools in the U.S. to use IPC-A-610C, Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies, as a standard in its industrial electronics curriculum.

www.ipc.org

Cognex Corp. (Natick, MA), a supplier of machine vision systems and vision sensors, will host a new series of free machine vision seminars in major North American cities this fall. The Understanding and Applying Machine Vision Sensors half-day events show how vision sensors can perform automated inspection tasks in the automotive, medical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, consumer products and electronics industries.

Designed as an introduction for factory automation professionals responsible for production efficiency and product quality, each seminar combines a machine vision basics tutorial with live demonstrations of the new industrial grade In-Sight 5000 Series vision sensors and ID readers. The tutorial covers how vision sensors work in manufacturing applications to accurately gauge, guide, identify and inspect products to reduce scrap costs and inventory problems and achieve a high level of product quality.

In addition to walking away with an understanding of the fundamentals of implementing a successful vision solution, participants will receive free In-Sight Explorer trial software on a CD, which provides hands-on experience developing vision applications from start to finish. The CD also includes application examples, preliminary design considerations, a multi-media tutorial on building vision applications, lighting and optics videos and a utility package that helps determine the field of view and resolution requirements of vision applications.

The seminars will run from August through December in major cities across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Register online at www.cognex.com/seminar or call (800) 677-2646.