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Eleven Cookson Electronics employees representing offices around the globe have been awarded the Presidents Award for their work in 2003. The awards were officially presented at a ceremony at the Castle Hill Inn and Resort, Newport, RI, in May, with 65 employees and guests in attendance.

Doreen Agnew, Robert Wallace, Gary Klimala, Robert Cahill, Wim van Ravenswaay, Rich Caron, Rick Correia, Stephen Whitehead, John Tremblay, Mark Foster and Axel Fuhrmann were presented awards for specific achievements that have gone above and beyond their day-to-day responsibilities with direct impact on the business.

"This is a very prestigious honor that recognizes the highest level of performance within our organization," said Allan MacDonald, vice president of human resources. "These employees should be very proud of their accomplishments."

The ceremony included an opening video and introductions of each recipient, along with a description of his or her accomplishment by the individuals who nominated them for the recognition award.

Cookson Electronics is a supplier of assembly materials, semiconductor packaging and specialty chemicals and coatings used in the electronics assembly and surface finishing industries.

www.cooksonelectronics.com

Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials (Jersey City, NJ) will implement a tin surcharge covering the dramatic increase in the cost of tin on all invoices for ALPHA solder paste when the London Metal Exchange price exceeds $9,500/metric ton. The surcharge calculation is based on official LME pricing (www.lme.co.uk) which confirmed that tin prices more than doubled in the last six months over the previous two-year average.

In May, the price of tin broached the $10,000/per metric ton psychological level. Adding to the upward price pressure on tin, some analysts and research groups suggest that the production of tin for 2004 will be approximately 6% less than the demand. Prices for other metals over the same period have also risen sharply with copper up 91%, lead up 128%, nickel up 146% and silver up 95%. The surcharge does not address the cost increases for these metals.

"This year-long run up in the cost of tin has hit us particularly hard," said David Zerfoss, president of Cookson EAM. "An example of its impact is that 63% of 90% of the solder paste we ship worldwide is tin...Given this severe cost increase situation and the importance of tin in the assembly process, we are forced to ask our customers to share the burden with us. As soon as tin prices drop below $9,500/metric ton, I will rescind the surcharge."

www.alphametals.com

FEINFOCUS (Stamford, CT), a supplier of x-ray inspection systems and tube technology, announces two new additions to the application engineering staff: Dr. Guido Rademaker and Thomas Pukall. With the addition of Dr. Rademaker and Pukall, the company has substantially increased its applications staff.

Under the leadership of newly appointed director of technology development, Dr. Udo E. Frank, the application staff is responsible for identifying future market demands in the global electronics industry and tailoring an x-ray solution to fit each requirement.

The company also announced that Dr. Frank will be the keynote speaker for FEINFOCUS' global technical seminar series on x-ray inspection technology. The company is sponsoring this program in an effort to educate customers on the most recent advances in x-ray inspection technology.

www.feinfocus.com

The new Universal Instruments (Binghamton, NY) AdVantis AFC-42 placement machine is designed to reduce the cost of entry for manufacturers needing high mix capability, increased speed and greater accuracy. The machine leverages Universal's platform concept to deliver a low priced but scalable solution ideal for low-margin assembly applications. The machine also has a smaller footprint to occupy less shop floor space.

Like its predecessor, the new machine features a single-beam positioning system. However, it employs dual-drive lead screws as well as 1um linear encoders for accuracy close to that of the GSMxs linear motor based platform.

"All of the capability and functionality of high-end assembly has been transferred to the AFC-42, including high magnification cameras, flip chip algorithms, low force capability, heated spindles, fluxing, several feeder types and dispensing," said Richard Boulanger, vice president of the advanced semiconductor assembly division.

The company believes the placer will be attractive to high-mix and high-volume manufacturers whose markets demand the utmost cost-per-placement efficiency in order to sustain narrow margins.

www.uic.com

The National Physical Laboratory (www.npl.co.uk) has announced the launch of a new report, "Susceptibility of Glass-Reinforced Epoxy Laminate to Conductive Anodic Filamentation," written by Alan Brewin, Ling Zou and Christopher Hunt.

Conductive anodic filamentation (CAF) is a subsurface failure mode for woven glass-reinforced laminate (FR4) materials, in which a copper salt filament grows and results in a consequential electrical short between plated through hole walls or adjacent copper planes. In the study, FR4 laminates in the form of high PTH density multi-layer test circuits were exposed to different manufacturing conditions and studied for resistance to CAF initiation and growth.

CAF performance was assessed using high temperature and humidity conditions to promote failures, with a voltage applied across adjacent vias. By applying a range of voltages and via geometries, the basis for a performance map for laminates was obtained for use in materials comparison. The changes due to exposure of laminates to lead-free temperatures and other processing steps were then examined using the technique and a number of important recommendations were made to minimize the possibility of CAF initiation and growth.

All reports released by the Electronics Group at NPL can be searched and downloaded free from: www.npl.co.uk/ei/publications.

Sanmina-SCI Corp. (San Jose, CA), a global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company, and Agilent Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, CA), have announced a new technique for rapidly generating high-resolution, sub-surface 3-D scans of complex multilayer backplane and printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs).

Using Agilent's 5DX Series 5000 automated x-ray system, the new method verifies how well press-fit connectors with compliant pins are positioned within plated-through-hole (PTH) conduits.

Featuring multilayer construction that can exceed 48 layers, Sanmina-SCI's backplanes deploy high-density, press-fit connectors into PTH conduits with diameters that often measure 0.022 in. and smaller.

Kent Dinkel, Agilent's Imaging marketing manager, Automated Test Group, said, "Our 5DX system was designed to be a powerful x-ray tester always looking for new problems to solve. We salute Sanmina-SCI for galvanizing an application that has enabled the industry's first sub-surface 3-D scans of complex backplanes in production environments."

Dinkel also noted that press-fit connectors having compliant pins are becoming more widely used in a number of PCBA markets.

Sanmina-SCI noted that when multiple component types, including surface-mount devices, populate a backplane or PCBA, the new inspection method can scan the entire backplane—both surface and sub-surface simultaneously—to check solder contacts of components as well as press-fit connector contact integrity.

www.sanmina-sci.com

www.agilent.com