Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture articles from May 2004

Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture archives from May 2004

No netlists in 274-X.(Letters: our readers respond)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I wanted to provide some additional information to the column by Jeff Miller about intelligent data ("Is Intelligent Data Transfer Achievable," March 2004). One comment would seem to "suggest that the use of Gerber RS 274-X somehow includes...

Best defense.(Market Watch)
May 1, 2004... BEST DEFENSE Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only). % CHANGE DEC. JAN. FEB. * YTD Computers and...

Manufacturing up 10 straight months.(Market Watch)
May 1, 2004... TEMPE, AZ -- Manufacturing made it 10 for 10 in March as the sector expanded again, with all 20 manufacturing industries reporting growth, said the Institute for Supply Management (ism.ws). All that changed was the rate of growth: new orders...

Q4 EDA revenues up 13%.(Market Watch)
May 1, 2004... SAN JOSE -- Revenues from EDA software and services rose 13% to $1.02 billion during the fourth quarrel; reported the EDA Consortium (edac.org). Revenues topped $1 billion for the first time in two years. It was the first quarter since Q1 2001...

Study: all sectors, regions to be Pb-free.(Market Watch)
May 1, 2004... COLD SPRING HARBOR, NY -- Although legislation in Europe will be a catalyst for the transition, lead-free electronics will impact all electronics companies and segments, including those beyond the scope of RoHS, says a new study. Prismark...

Industry market snapshot.(Market Watch)
May 1, 2004... INDUSTRY MARKET SNAPSHOT Book-to-bills of various components/equipment NOV. DEC. JAN. FEB. Semiconductor equipment (1) 1.05 1.23 1.19 1.14 Semiconductor (2) 4.5%...

Wise moves: adds training to maintenance plan.(Design)
May 1, 2004... NEWBERG, OR -- Wise Software Solutions has added online training to its customers' maintenance contracts. The CAM software provider will include "proportionate" levels of training with each level of its annual maintenance contracts. The...

Two for one: integrated with new Allegro.(Design)
May 1, 2004... NASHUA, NH AND SANTA CLARA, CA -- A pair of EDA providers have integrated their tools with Cadence's (cadence.com) new Allegro system interconnect design platform. Ohio Design Automation (ohioda.com) now provides Cadence users with full...

Winning by design.(Design)
May 1, 2004... SAN JOSE -- Mentor Graphics announced the winners of its 18th Annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards at a banquet in coordination with PCB Design Conference West. The program is open to any design created with Mentor Graphics PCB tools,...

Ansoft gets discrete.(Design)
May 1, 2004... PITTSBURGH -- A new component library of capacitors and inductors for use within Ansoft Corp.'s (ansoft.com) high frequency circuit simulation tool was released in March. Murata Manufacturing Co. said that providing a design kit for Ansoft...

Material gains.(Design)
May 1, 2004... Polyclad Laminates CEO Joseph Santolucito, at the opening of Polyclad's expanded Elk Grove, CA, plant in March. The company invested $20 million in the facility. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

'Critical mass' can stop critical mess: USPCA boosts member drive.(Manufacturing)
May 1, 2004... EVANSTON, IL -- "We're at a critical juncture: the industry felt it wasn't being represented. We are trying to do that. There are several ways IPC can support it, and ways it cannot. That's where we come in." So says Joe Fehsenfeld,...

Knockoffs unmasked: raid busts counterfeiters.(Manufacturing)
May 1, 2004... HUIZHOU, CHINA -- Acting on a tip, Huizhou authorities busted a local company in March and confiscated more than 250 boxes of fake LPI soldermask. In a March 12 report, Dym News, a newspaper in Huizhou, Guandong, reported that the Huizhou...

Trimming tin whiskers.(Manufacturing)
May 1, 2004... HERNDON, VA -- Concerned that commercial users might drive component finishes that undermine reliability measures, a group of nine large manufacturers of high-rel electronics in March issued a set of interim recommendations for lead-free...

Photocircuits 'retools'.(Manufacturing)
May 1, 2004... GLEN COVE, NY -- Photocircuits Corp. realigned its tooling and manufacturing operations in order to accommodate rapid growth in its high-mix and quickturn business. Orders are expected to increase to $100 million this year, from $50 million in...

Bigger and better.
May 1, 2004... Chin-Poon will expand HDI capacity, adding 50% to its Suzhou, China, plant by June, and doubling capacity in Taiwan by Q4.

Revved up.
May 1, 2004... EMA Design Automation (ema-eda.com) will sell TurboTools Corp.'s (turbotools.com) line of CablEquity electrical and mechanical tools for importing electrical data straight from OrCAD.

NC drilled.
May 1, 2004... Gultech North Carolina shut its doors in April and laid off about 25 staff. The 30,000 [ft..sup.2] quickturn/prototype PCB plant was acquired from Accudyne Inc. in 2000.

Strong arm.
May 1, 2004... Arm Electronics Co. will go public on the Japan exchange. The PCB maker forecast a net profit of 220 million yen on sales of 3.03 billion yen for the fiscal year ended this month.

Flex partners.
May 1, 2004... Flex InterconnectTechnologies (fit4flex.com) and Samtec (samtec.com) will team on designing and building prototype and pre-production quantities of flex and rigid-flex circuits. FIT also opened a new 15,000 [ft..sup.2] facility.

DOCTAR is in.
May 1, 2004... Trilogic EDA (trilogic.com) is reselling DOCTAR netlist compare software from Cadalist Enterprises (cadalistenterprises.com) to Mentor and Pads users in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

In the air.
May 1, 2004... Kunshan Huaxin Circuit Board began pilot production in Kunshan, China, and plans to expand capacity to 400,000 [m.sup.2] from 250,000 [m.sup.2].

More flex.
May 1, 2004... Nippon Steel Chemical (nscc.co.jp) has begun construction on a 5 billion yen expansion of its flex laminates plants, and will add two factories and 3 million [m.sup.2] of capacity by 2005.

ISO cleanliness.
May 1, 2004... Foresite Inc. (residues.com) test lab garnered ISO 9001:2000 registration.

Mil approved.
May 1, 2004... Dynaco Corp (dynacocorp.com) has been qualified by Defense Supply Center Columbus for Thermount polyimide (type 3, BI). Other recent additions to the DSCC QML for MIL-PRF-31032/1 and MIL-PRF-31032/2 include: Lone Star Circuits, Tyco Santa...

Plasma needed.
May 1, 2004... Plasma Etch Inc. (plasmaetch.com) is expanding its production plant to meet demand for its plasma systems and contract work.

Isola sold: TPG, Redferns new owners.(Manufacturing)
May 1, 2004... ESSEN, GERMANY -- Ownership of Isola AG's extensive laminate business is returning to the U.S. In a deal closed March 31, Rutgers AG (rutgers.de) agreed to sell its wholly-owned subsidiary to Texas Pacific Group and Redfern Partners. The sale...

Circatex future in doubt: cuts 350 jobs, buyer sought.
May 1, 2004... SOUTH SHIELDS, U.K. -- Economic troubles continue to plague PCB maker Circatex, which laid off 350 workers--two-thirds of its staff--without warning March 29. Administrators for the company said an outside buyer is being sought. In...

Events.(Happenings)(Calendar)
May 1, 2004... MAY 4-6 SMTA Boston/Nepcon East/Assembly East Boston. Contact: amta.org 5-7 Benchmarking Supply Chain Management Milwaukee. Contact: www.clemson.edu/success 11-12 PCB DESIGN CONFERENCE ROAD SERIES...

Dyconex.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... Dyconex (dyconex.com) named Martin Schnyder vice president of sales, replacing Dr. Michele Stampanoni, who becomes chief marketing officer.

Sprig Circuits.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... Sprig Circuits (sprigcircuits.com) named Richard Beard director of technology. He has 30 years of PCB manufacturing experience.

Asia Connections Ltd.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... Asia Connections Ltd. (asia-connections.com) named Frank Haigh VP, sales and marketing.

Nanya Technology.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... NanyaTechnology (nanya.com) promoted Dr. Pei-Lin Pal to vice president of global sales and marketing. He was formerly with Ascend Semiconductor, Vanguard International Semiconductor, Omega Micro, Cypress Semiconductor and Intel Corp., and has a...

Indium Corp.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... Indium Corp. (indium.com) named Dan McCall manufacturing engineer. He has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering technologies from the State University of New York Institute of Technology.

Photocircuits Corp.(Faces)
May 1, 2004... Photocircuits Corp. (photocircuits.com) promoted Mike Fuggini to director of operations, a new position. He is a 20-year veteran of Photocircuits, and was most recently manager of process engineering staff and environmental compliance...

InteliCoat Technologies (intelicoat.com) named Bestrade Ltd. (bestradegroup.com) as Thailand distributor for its Tecnilith APF artwork protect film.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... InteliCoat Technologies (intelicoat.com) named Bestrade Ltd. (bestradegroup.com) as Thailand distributor for its Tecnilith APF artwork protect film. Bestrade will also coordinate sales elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Compeq International (compeq.com) has acquired a plasma etch system from Plasma Etch Inc.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... Compaq International (compaq.com) has acquired a plasma etch system from Plasma Etch Inc. (plasmaetch.com), an AOI from Orbotech (orbotech.com), and a flying probe tester from Luther & Maelzer (luther-maelzer.com).

Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. ordered multiple Orbotech Ltd. (orbotech.com) DP-100SL direct imaging systems.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. ordered multiple Orbotech Ltd. (orbotech.com) DP-100SL direct imaging systems. It was Orbotech's largest LDI order.

ITC Intercircuit (itcintercircuit.com) delivered a PS200.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... ITC Intercircuit (itcintercircuit.com) delivered a PS200 double-chamber hole-filling power squeegee and a PD30 manual plane raze to Unicircuit (unicircuit.com).

DEK (dek.com) named Mektronix Systems (mektronix.com) and Arbell International (arbell.com) as its representatives in Canada.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... DEK (dek.com) named Mektronix Systems (mektronix.com) and Arbell International (arbell.com) as its representatives in Canada. Mektronix will handle DEK's equipment lines, while Arbell will oversee process support products (tooling, stencils and...

Sierra Proto Express (protoaxpress.com) purchased an A6-S flying probe tester.(It's A Deal)
May 1, 2004... Sierra Proto Express (protoaxpress.com) purchased an A6-S flying probe tester from Everett Charles Technologies (ectinfo.com).

Sales 101 ... again! if you don't fire the doctor when you're sick, why dump your sales staff?(Power Selling)
May 1, 2004... HERE WE GO again. Business is back (barely) in the U.S. True, some companies are seeing more activity than they have in three years and, true, some are already having a hard time handling it. Usually, those are the companies that did nothing...

Who is minding the technology store? If OEMs eschew technology development and others lack resources to fill the void, maybe serious industry consortia efforts can now take place.(ROI)
May 1, 2004... RETURNING FROM A recent industry gathering, one thought haunted me: Who, exactly, is in charge? It was certainly good to see so many in such an upbeat mood. For the first time in years the talk was of expansion. And there were far fewer...

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: even famous columnists can make the occasional error.(No Myths Allowed)
May 1, 2004... OK, I WAS wrong. Thanks to Alex Guterman of Nortel Networks for patiently pointing out this error in my new book, Signal Integrity--Simplified. Crosstalk in transmission lines is a very subtle phenomenon. It is critically important in all...

Thermal issues and properties of embedded resistors: a study of power dissipation characteristics and their effect on laminates is launched.(Getting Embedded)
May 1, 2004... IT ALL STARTED in 1998. I was building circuit boards and Mike Jouppi was analyzing "black boxes" for aerospace use. Mike ran into a situation where he was considering the power dissipation effects of the copper traces on the overall thermal...

An integrated approach to designing-in FPGAS: FPGA/PCB integration is time consuming and error-prone. Automating communication between the flows can eliminate the impact of an FPGA I/O design change on the PCB design.(FPGA Design Flow)
May 1, 2004... As FPGA architectures have evolved from thousands of gates to millions of gates, FPGA packages have evolved from hundreds to thousands of pins. While the pin pitch on an FPGA package has been constant, the size of the FPGA package, and...

For designers, better times: spring is here, or so it seems. New tools and plenty of work are the norm--can we sustain it?(PCB West Recap)
May 1, 2004... What a difference a year makes. PCB Design Conference West 2003 took place against a backdrop of the pending invasion of Iraq and a very shaky economy. But this year the industry's leading event for designers exuded a much healthier vibe;...

Microstrip propagation time: the difference in determining stripline and microstrip propagation time is more than a fine line.(Stripline Speed)
May 1, 2004... Electrical signals on wires and traces travel at the speed of light, 186,280 miles/sec. Do the math and that works out to 0.9835 ft/ns, or 11.8 in./ns. The speed of light slows down in any other medium by the square root of the relative...

Land patterns for BGA packages: routing, spacing and soldermask requirements for coarse- and fine-pitch ball grid arrays.(BGA Footprints)
May 1, 2004... Ball grid array packages are divided into two distinct groups based on contact pitch: coarse-pitch and fine-pitch. The coarse-pitch BGA group includes plastic and ceramic package outlines permitting 1.50, 1.27 and 1.0 mm contact pitch...

Trends in laser microvia drilling: demand for the technology is healthy, but new systems reveal mostly engineering advances, not breakthroughs.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2004... In December 2000 I noted that there were 15 to 20 companies claiming to provide microvia drilling systems to the PCB and flex markets, but that when the dust settled there would only be a half dozen or so left standing. I further predicted that...

Shanghai: gateway to the future: want to understand what globalization means? Come to Shanghai.(CPCA Recap)
May 1, 2004... It used to be that only the true pioneers were here. Hell, some of us were here before there was a show. Now we try to figure out who is not here and ask, where are they? What's wrong with them? Maybe they're not the players we thought they...

High stability phototool film.(off the Shelf)
May 1, 2004... Duratool Eclipse Tecnilith phototool film, for multilayer boards, features exceptional stability, high resolution and chemical resistance. Is designed to be impervious to tears, scratches, highly abrasive chemical washes and soldermasks. Comes...

System interconnect co-design.(off the Shelf)
May 1, 2004... Allegro system interconnect design platform includes PCB SI integrated high-speed design and analysis environment; a common constraint management system integrated across hierarchical schematic capture; high-speed design and analysis; and...

Chip-to-PCB simulation.(off the Shelf)
May 1, 2004... SPEED2000 transient time-domain simulation tool analyzes power delivery system and signal return path in a non-ideal power supply environment of the entire system interconnect-from chip I/O driver through IC package, across the PCB and back...

High-frequency laminate.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... The RO4350i series material is a glass-reinforced hydrocarbon/ceramic thermoset laminate (not PTFE) designed for sensitive, high-volume commercial applications such as base station antennae and power amplifiers; spread spectrum communications...

Automatic screen printer.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... The, 3000 screen printer is 3/4-automatic, and can move substrates off to the rear, right or left. Prints thin flexible substrates and rigid panels. Is configured in sizes from 22 x 30" to 62 x 83" (larger sizes available in long-stroke...

'All-use' UV laser.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... The MicroLine Cut 350 is for cutting flex and rigid boards, skiving cover layers, drilling microvias, and machining pockets in microwave boards. Can be used for on-demand, chemical-free production of PTFE circuits directly from design data, Has...

Low DK conformal coating.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... SCS Parylene HT offers UV stability, low dielectric constant and component protection at temperatures up to 532[degrees]C, higher than available with traditional Parylenas C, N and D. Provides a chemical, moisture and dielectric barrier. For...

Multilingual SPC tool.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... Synergy 2000 real-time SPC software comes in English, Chinese, French and Spanish versions. Measures critical dimensions of parts, conducts batch sampling and inspects for product defects and nonconformities. Can collect data in one language...

Inventory reduction tool.(Others Of Note)
May 1, 2004... Paradigm v3.0 ERP system now features an optional Advanced Scheduling and Planning module, which applies dynamic finite capacity scheduling to reduce inventory and increase productivity by planning operations only when resources are available....

Let's get small.(Our Line)
May 1, 2004... FIFTY years ago, the Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator--what you and I would call a computer--took up 1,800 sq. ft. of floor space. What do you suppose the reaction would have been had you told the engineers at the University of...