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Celestica Inc. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), an electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, announced that Stephen W.Delaney has been appointed Celestica's new chief executive officer (CEO), effective immediately, by the company's Board of Directors.

Delaney has been acting as CEO since Jan. 28, 2004, when Eugene V. Polistuk retired as chairman and CEO. Robert L. Crandall will remain in the role of chairman of the Board of Directors.

Celestica's board conducted a thorough review of internal and external candidates as part of the search for a new CEO.

"Since joining Celestica three years ago, Steve has distinguished himself as a very strong leader, with a relentless focus on execution and a demonstrated ability to drive operating performance and build strong relationships with customers," said Crandall. "The board looks forward to working closely with Steve as Celestica moves ahead."

"I am honoured to be selected as Celestica's CEO," said Delaney. "I am firmly committed to collaborating with our valued customers, employees, partners, and the Board to effectively position Celestica for future success.."

Since joining Celestica in 2001, Delaney has held positions including president of Americas Operations. Prior to 2001, he held executive and senior management roles in operations at Visteon Automotive Systems, AlliedSignal's Electronic Systems business, Ford's Electronics division and IBM's Telecommunications division.

The company also recently announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2004. Revenue was $2,017 million, up 27% from last quarter. Net loss on a GAAP basis for the first quarter was $8.4 million or $(0.06) per share, which includes a pre-tax $11 million charge associated primarily with the company's previously announced restructuring activities. This compares to net earnings of $3.2 million or $0.02 per share for the same period last year.

Adjusted net earnings (loss) was $8.2 million, compared to $12.8 million for the same period last year.

Delaney said, "Earnings are beginning to reflect some operating leverage, which we expect to gain momentum and drive steady margin improvement throughout 2004. To accelerate improvement in profitability, we
plan to further restructure our operations to better align capacity with customers' requirements. In this regard, we expect further pre-tax charges
in the range of $175 - $200 million. This will represent a 10-15% reduction
of the company's workforce (approximately 5,000 people) over the next 12
months."

On March 12, 2004, the company acquired Manufacturers' Services Ltd. (MSL, Concord, MA), a full-service global electronics manufacturing and supply chain services company for a purchase price of $321 million.

www.celestica.com

Nacom Corp. (Griffin, GA), an automotive electronic comonents provider, has been named "Large Manufacturer of the Year" for the state of Georgia. Company representatives accepted the award last week from Gov. Sonny Perdue at a gala celebration serving as the capstone of Manufacturing Appreciation Week. Perdue cited Nacom for the part it has played in both the local and state economies.

Satoshi Negishi, the chairman of the board of Nacom's parent corporation, the Yazaki Group (Tokyo, Japan); John Olson, the vice president and general manager of Nacom; and Mary Goggins, Nacom's 2003 Associate of the Year recipient, were on hand to accept the award.

Olson praised NACOM's employees and cited the grassroots level assistance the firm has received from the Griffin community, the volunteer effort employees have demonstrated within their community and the close working relationship with Griffin Technical College.

NACOM opened its operation in Griffin in 1994 and expanded in 1997 to encompass almost 500,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space and employ over 900 associates.

Indium Corp. (Utica, NY) offers a complete range of solder preforms for interconnect and joining applications. The company's product line includes their range of solder alloys, as well as a capability to produce numerous sizes and shapes.

Indium, a supplier of solder fabrications, offers solder preforms in a variety of shapes, including: washers, discs, rectangles and squares, "picture frames", shot, spheres, ganged arrays and specialty shapes.

Solder preforms are produced in a wide size range. Discs are made with diameters as small as 0.004 in.. Washers are made with inner diameters as small as 0.015 in. and outer diameters as small as 0.025 in. All preforms can also be produced in larger sizes.

Solder preforms can be specified in most of the nearly 300 alloys offered by the company, including lead free. In addition, many preforms offer the option of flux-coating. Solder preforms are packed with a variety of options including: jar, tray, palette and tape and reel.

www.indium.com

Speedline Technologies Inc. (Franklin, MA), announced it has entered into an exclusive agreement with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA) for the license of patent-pending closed-loop printing technology. The intellectual property facilitates the closing of the loop between an automated optical inspection (AOI) system and a printer with the intent to optimize the volume of printed paste deposits.

"The agreement governs the terms for commercial development of this intellectual property for ultimate product sale," said Robert Boyes, product marketing manager, Speedline Technologies. "We are honored to join with Georgia Tech to develop product technologies that will generate profound benefits for printed circuit board manufacturers. The goal of this partnership is to advance process control technology for the printing
process, which will ultimately provide improved yield opportunities for customers."

The closed-loop printing technology was developed by Georgia Tech at the Center for Board Assembly Research (CBAR). Recent proof of concept testing conducted at Speedline validated Georgia Tech's findings. The technology embodies algorithms that utilize hybrid data-driven control techniques for calculating independent variable modifications. This effectively changes machine parameters in real time and improves process yields and product reliability.

"Data-driven closed loop control is essential for electronics manufacturing industry," said Alex Goldstein, director of operations and infrastructure at CBAR. "With help from the industry, CBAR will continue this work for different processes in electronics manufacturing."

Georgia Tech recognized Speedline as a valued CBAR partner at APEX 2004 in
February in Anaheim, CA.

www.speedlinetech.com

www.cbar.gatech.edu

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent signing of California's Workers' Compensation Reform Bill, which promises to save up to $7 billion a year for the state's employers, caused IPC's California Circuits Association (CCA) to applaud this decision.

"During the most recent Sacramento Day, IPC and many of its California-based members heavily lobbied the state's legislature on the overwhelming need to fix the state's broken workers' compensation system-one that doesn't sufficiently provide protection for injured workers and yet costs employers an alarming amount in premium costs," said Dick Crowe, IPC CCA's executive director. "The issue ranked as one of the most contentious facing California employers, and it's thrilling to see that our voices were heard in the state's capitol.

"Though just one of several industry groups pushing for this reform, IPC's CCA and its members collectively played an important role in bringing about success," Crowe cointinued. "Lobbying is a legitimate and concerted way to influence responsible legislation and it remains a key benefit of IPC membership."

Effective immediately, the reform seeks to simplify the current program for treating job-related injuries and provide financial relief to California's employers that presently face the nation's highest workers' compensation costs.

Under the new law, workers will now be required to seek care from a list of doctors approved by employers and insurance companies for treating injured workers. Also, workers' rights to seek a second opinion will be limited, as an independent medical review board will be established to resolve disputes and allow injured workers to switch physicians.

Efforts from IPC to convince California's Senators and Assemblymen of the need for workers' compensation reform began at its first Sacramento Day event in 2003, which gave all companies in the electronic interconnection industry with operations in California an opportunity to lobby Assembly Members and Senators. Over the past two years, IPC also arranged frequent plant visits for state legislators and prompted its California members to participate in various letter writing campaigns.

www.calcircuits.org

www.ipc.org

Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.

Agilent Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) introduced a high-speed production-test solution for identifying the maximum number of product defects at the lowest cost. BIST Assist 6.4 is built on technology that enables signal integrity testing of high-speed serial links up to 6.4 Gb/s using a cost-effective loopback/built-in self-test (BIST) approach

To date, testing devices with high-speed links has forced a compromise. Traditional at-speed test approaches of automated test equipment (ATE) and bench instruments offer the highest fault coverage but at a price too high for volume manufacturing of cost-sensitive, consumer-driven devices. Loopback test offers low cost but does not provide adequate defect identification. According to Agilent, its technology has the fault coverage of traditional ATE at the low cost associated with loopback.

The device provides a solution for high-volume testing of high-speed interfaces such as PCI Express, Serial ATA, Fibre Channel and Serial RapidIO. These high-speed interfaces are becoming pervasive in current and future-generation convergence devices such as media PCs, disk drives, set top boxes and digital video recorders. The continuing trend toward miniaturization and higher functionality drives the need for faster system links on a device or on a circuit board.

The new technology provides at-speed level control and precision and adjustable jitter injection up to 430 ps, exercising high-speed link performance and expanding fault coverage. Because it is a calibrated solution within the test head, it is both a robust production and an efficient characterization solution. Each card provides four loops (16 differential pins) operating up to 6.4 Gb/s.

www.agilent.com

Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.