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On May 25-26, Henkel Corp., Engent, KIC, Speedline Technologies and Siemens Dematic will present a two-day Hands-On Lead Free Technology Workshop in Norcross, GA. In support of the electronics industry's efforts to eliminate lead from products and processes, this program will provide participants with a broad knowledge of lead-free materials and a more complete understanding of the process requirements.

Unlike other lead-free workshops, the program will consist of hands-on training on the production floor, showing the process line, rework and building boards. Dr. Neil Poole of Henkel, Dr. Daniel Baldwin of Engent, MaryBeth Allen of KIC and Keith Howell of Speedline will lead the discussions on lead-free solder technology.

The workshop will offer electronics industry engineering management and staff including design, process, system and manufacturing engineers, an opportunity to learn about lead-free solders simultaneously from a solder developer and equipment manufacturers.

Workshop hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days. The program will be held at Engent, 3140 Northwoods Parkway in Norcross, Georgia. Registration for the program will be $495. Advance registration is required by May 10. To register, visit www.kicthermal.com.

View Engineering Inc. (Simi Valley, CA), a designer and manufacturer of vision measurement systems, has announced the integration of linear motors into their View Summit series of large format, vision measurement/inspection systems. Linear motors are not subject to the same velocity and acceleration limitations inherent in systems converting rotary to linear motion, such as lead screw systems.

The integration of linear motors provides the platform with the higher velocities and accelerations needed to satisfy near-line measurement/inspection requirements. The systems operate precisely to 0.1 micron at velocities ranging from 400 to 500 mm/sec. The combination of precision and speed is critical in addressing the process monitoring and quality improvement needs of manufacturers challenged by higher manufacturing volumes, decreased design geometries and tighter tolerances.

The inspection system's design features include a fixed bridge design with a heavy-duty granite base and arch, passive vibration isolation system and non-contact stage encoders offering 0.1-micron resolution. Available in a variety of sizes, it can measure large footprint parts such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), stencils, flat panel displays, etching sheets and mask patterns, as well as nested groups of smaller parts.

www.vieweng.com

Cookson Group plc (London, UK), an international materials technology group, has announced that John Sussens joined the Board as a non-executive director on May 1, 2004. He has been an executive director of Misys plc, a software products and solutions company, since July 1989 and group managing director since 1998.

Sussens has a long record in the manufacturing sector. He started his career with the Ford Motor Co., and prior to joining Misys was managing director of JCB Manufacturing, a construction and agricultural equipment manufacturing company.

The company also recently released its results for the first quarter of 2004. The electronics division continued to benefit from the recovery in the electronics industry that began to take hold in the second half of 2003, as well as from the actions taken over the past three years to reduce its cost base and optimize capacity.

Sales for Q1 were 18% higher than the same quarter last year at constant exchange rates and up 10% at reported rates. First quarter sales were also marginally higher sequentially. Activity in the Asia-Pacific region continued to grow strongly; in the U.S., a gradual improvement has been underway since the end of the third quarter of 2003; however, in Europe no improvement in underlying demand has yet been seen. As a result of increased levels of activity and a lower cost base, operating profit of $19.5 million for the first quarter of 2004 was more than $16 million higher than the same period last year, at both constant and reported exchange rates.

Q1 sales of laminates were 21% higher than the same quarter last year. Having operated at a loss of some $8.9 million in the first quarter of 2003 and near break-even in Q4 2003, the sector's profitability continued to improve and a modest profit was recorded in the month of March 2004. Further improvements are expected to arise in the second quarter as the program to optimize production capacity at the sector's U.S. West Coast facility nears completion and in-house production of the GETEK product range increases in both the U.S. and Asia-Pacific.

In the chemistry division, sales for the quarter were 16% higher than last year. Profitability improved markedly, more than doubling year-on-year, although profits were boosted in the first quarter by a surge in high margin sales in the sector's Japanese joint venture.

Assembly materials sales were 18% ahead of last year. Sales were inflated by a 45% year-on-year increase in the price of tin although the sector was better able to pass on the impact of this than in the fourth quarter of 2003.

Operating profit for the Group's continuing operations was $42.5 million, $23 million higher than Q1 2003. Profit before tax in the first quarter was $32 million, compared to a loss of $1.7 million in the first quarter of 2003.

www.cooksongroup.co.uk

UP Media Group Inc. (UPMG, Atlanta, GA) has announced that PCB Design Conference West, the annual West Coast conference and exhibition for printed circuit board (PCB) engineering, design and manufacturing professionals, will return to the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, on March 7-11, 2005. Long held in Santa Clara, PCB West has been held at the San Jose Convention Center for the last two years.

"The San Jose Convention Center is a terrific venue and we really enjoyed holding the show there," said UPMG president Pete Waddell. "However, there are a lot of positives about the Santa Clara Convention Center that our attendees, exhibitors and staff alike appreciate. For example, the SCCC facility is located just off Highway 101 on Great America Parkway, which results in easy access from all parts of Silicon Valley by rail or car. Parking is free, and two great hotels—the Westin Hotel Santa Clara and Hilton Santa Clara—are literally only steps away from the convention center lobby."

Sponsored by industry trade magazines Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture and Circuits Assembly, PCB West annually provides attendees and vendors with a conference and exhibition for the design and manufacture of advanced circuits, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and related technologies.

PCB West will provide attendees with a five-day conference program featuring a three-day Technical Conference of short courses and papers and two days of in-depth Professional Development Certificate Curriculum courses. The two-day product and service exhibition will be held on March 8-9.

UPMG is a privately held company that specializes in magazine publishing and trade show and conference production. UPMG currently publishes Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture and Circuits Assembly. In addition, UPMG produces two annual conferences and trade shows for the design and manufacture industry—PCB Design Conference West and PCB Design Conference East in the Boston area. UPMG also hosts the PCB Design Conference Road Series of courses in cities throughout the U.S.

www.pcbwest.com

The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI, Herndon, VA) will sponsor a tin whisker workshop and a component supplier/large user meeting at the upcoming IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) in Las Vegas, NV, June 1-4.

An all-day session on June 1 will review all of the NEMI tin whisker project activities to date. Two half-day sessions are scheduled for June 2. Users and suppliers will discuss mitigation strategies and acceptance test plans for high-reliability critical systems applications in the morning session, followed by an open meeting of the Tin Whisker Accelerated Test Project in the afternoon.

With the move toward lead-free electronics, tin is considered a drop-in replacement for the tin-lead finish currently used for component terminations. However, pure tin coatings may have a tendency to grow small filaments, known as whiskers, which could bridge adjacent terminals, causing system failures. NEMI has three projects that are working on various aspects of this phenomenon: accelerated test (attempting to develop tests to predict tin whiskers), modeling (attempting to understand basic cause of whiskers) and a user group (addressing how high-reliability, long-life systems or critical applications can be protected).

The Tuesday workshop will provide an overview of more than three years' work by the three projects, including discussion of an annotated bibliography, a set of tests recommended to JEDEC, basic theories behind whisker formation and how to protect critical applications and systems given what is known today.

On Wednesday, the Tin Whisker User Group will focus on the need for mitigation practices when pure tin is used as a component terminal coating. The concern with tin whiskers in high-reliability, critical systems applications will be discussed, potential solutions outlined and tests to demonstrate compliance will be proposed.

Carol Handwerker, chief of the Metallurgy Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will moderate the Tuesday workshop and Wednesday user/supplier discussions on whisker mitigation and test acceptance. Nick Vo, Motorola, will chair the Wednesday test method standardization evaluation and discussions.

All meetings will be held in the same venue as the ECTC. Anyone registered for ECTC can attend the NEMI tin whisker meetings. Individuals wishing to attend only the NEMI meetings should contact the NEMI secretariat for information (703-834-0330).

www.ectc.net

www.nemi.org

Electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider Flextronics (Singapore) has announced results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2004. Net sales for the quarter were a record $3.8 billion, a 23% increase over the March 2003 quarter. Net sales for the fiscal year reached $14.5 billion, up $1.2 billion, or 9%, from 2003.

Proforma net income was $72.8 million, or $0.13 per diluted share for Q4, up $47.4 million from Q4 2003. Including after-tax amortization expense of $8.8 million and restructuring costs of $48.0 million, net income was $16.0 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, down from $19.5 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, year-on-year..

"Our financial results continue to improve as we realize the earnings leverage embedded in our business, said Michael E. Marks, chief executive officer of Flextronics. "Quarterly revenues grew 23% on a year-over-year basis, while proforma profits nearly tripled. Both operating margin and revenues were stronger than expected, as the quarter ended less seasonal than expected for handsets and other consumer related products."

Flextronics also announced that it intends to convert all of the outstanding 0% Convertible Junior Subordinated Notes issued in March 2003 into approximately 19 million shares of common stock. The company filed a Registration Statement on Form S-3 to register the shares, and the conversion will be completed after the Securities and Exchange Commission declares the Form S-3 effective. The conversion will not impact Flextronics' diluted EPS, as the stock equivalents have always been included in the diluted EPS calculation.

www.flextronics.com