Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture articles from May 2005

Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture archives from May 2005

Taking it to the hill.(OUR LINE)
May 1, 2005... AS a scholar of the English language, I have noticed that certain words carry more emotional weight than others do. "Free" is one of those words that trip a wire in the human brain. Buy one, get one free. Free Mandela. The land of the free. ...

Buying trends 'on display'.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only). % CHANGE DEC. JAN. (r) FEB. * YTD Computers/electronics products 0.7 ...

Production steady in March.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... TEMPE, AZ -- Manufacturing ticked down in March vet grew for the 22nd consecutive month. Growth in new orders and inventories helped offset lower production, and backlogs jumped, said the Institute for Supply Management (www.ism.ws). "The...

IC downturn waning.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... SARATOGA, CA -- The decline in semiconductors that began in the second half of 2004 possibly came to a halt in January, according to a leading research firm. "Although it seems that the decline stalled in January, we discourage extrapolating...

Computing outsourcing still no. 1.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... ALAMEDA, CA -- Computer systems account for 44% of all outsourcing--a figure that will remain constant even as ODMs grab a larger portion of the market, says research firm Technology Forecasters. The total value of computer systems market,...

Top EMS firms up 22% in '04.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... EL SEGUNDO, CA -- The top 10 EMS firms grew a combined 22% last year, to nearly $80 billion in sales, according to a report by iSuppli Corp. (isuppli.com). Flextronics, the largest EMS firm, grew 20.1% to $16.1 billion. Hon Hai, again in...

Industry market snapshot.(MARKET WATCH)
May 1, 2005... Book-to-bills of various components/equipment. NOV. DEC. JAN. FEB. Semiconductor equipment (1) 1.0 0.99 0.80 0.78 Semiconductors (2) 1.3% -3.5% 0.0% ...

EDA revenues up 3% for Q4, year.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 1, 2005... SAN JOSE -- The EDA Consortium's Market Statistics Service (MSS) reported that the EDA industry's revenue for Q4 of 2004 was $1.078 billion, a 3% increase over Q4 2003. For 2004, revenue totaled a record $4.02 billion, which was 3% more than...

AutoCAD pirate gets jail, probation.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 1, 2005... SANTA ROSA, CA -- Daniel Gary Woolsey was sentenced to nine months in jail for selling pirated copies of software from San Rafael-based Autodesk. Sonoma County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Donna Edwards said the 29-year-old Petaluma...

PCB west draws 1,400, good reviews.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 1, 2005... ATLANTA -- UP Media Group Inc. announced that the 14th annual PCB Design Conference West 2005, held March 7-11 at the Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center, provided over 55 industry-leading exhibitors with a targeted audience of approximately...

Survey: offshoring no. 2 reason for tech worker layoffs.(AT LEAST IT'S NOT NO. 1)
May 1, 2005... WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Offshoring is the second-highest cause of unemployment among U.S. technical professionals, according to the 2004 IEEE-USA Unemployment Survey. The leading cause of unemployment, cited by 62% of U.S. IEEE members who reported...

Ft. Collins latest Celestica plant to fall.(NOT AGAIN)
May 1, 2005... FT. COLLINS, CO -- Celestica (www.celestica.com) will close its electronics assembly plant here and lay off all 800 workers, the company said. The company will move production to lower-cost regions. The closing is part of the company's plan...

Park shuffles, hires managers.(A WALK IN THE PARK)
May 1, 2005... MELVILLE, NY -- Park Electrochemical Corp. has made a handful of management changes. Steven P. Schaefer, the current senior vice president, technology, has been elected to the new position of senior vice president, marketing. Emily J....

Capitol Hill Day to focus on int'l trade.(ENFORCE THE EXISTING RULES FIRST)
May 1, 2005... BANNOCKBURN, IL -- The main agenda item at IPC's (www.ipc.org) Capitol Hill Day will be to encourage Congress and the Bush administration to enforce existing international trade agreements. This year's event will take place on Wednesday, May...

Data Circuits gains ZBC license.(AROUND THE WORLD / MANUFACTURING)
May 1, 2005... SAN JOSE -- Merix Corp.'s San Jose PCB plant has licensed buried capacitance technology from Sanmina-SCI, the company said today. Data Circuit Systems, which Merix acquired last quarter, has been issued a manufacturer's license covering...

Solectron losses down, growth too.(AROUND THE WORLD / MANUFACTURING)
May 1, 2005... MILPITAS, CA -- Solectron Corp. (www.solectron.com) reported a much smaller Q2 loss year-on-year, but said customer growth has been slower than expected and second-half results will fall below levels in the first half of the year. Q2...

Events.(HAPPENINGS)(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... MAY 4 10 Steps to Effective RoHS Compliance Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA Contact: JoAnn Stromberg, (952) 920-7682; joann@smta.org 11-12 NEPCON 2005 Hilton...

Intercept Technology.(FACES)
May 1, 2005... Intercept Technology has hired four software engineers, all Georgia Tech graduates, for its Mozaix schematic capture development team. Colin Jennings, logical design manager, leads development of new product initiatives. He holds a BSCE from...

Venture Outsource Group.(FACES)
May 1, 2005... Lean manufacturing specialist Dr. Eric Olsen has joined Venture Outsource Group as a senior consultant. Olsen has more than 20 years of engineering and operations management experience and lean manufacturing expertise at companies including...

Electronics Workbench has opened a direct sales and technical support office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... Electronics Workbench has opened a direct sales and technical support office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The company's Brazilian employees are co-located with their colleagues at National Instruments Brazil. Electronics Workbench plans to add direct...

YESTech.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... YESTech has opened a China office to provide sales and technical support to the company's China customer base.

Envirotronics has named Tecnologia Avanzada Electroquim as the exclusive sales and service agent in Central Mexico.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... Envirotronics has named Tecnologia Avanzada Electroquim as the exclusive sales and service agent in Central Mexico. Founded in 1982, Tecnologia Avanzada Electroquim serves customers in Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Toluca, Queretaro, Morelos,...

Taiwanese packaging substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology will acquire flex PCB maker Flexium Interconnect through a stock swap.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... Taiwanese packaging substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology will acquire flex PCB maker Flexium Interconnect through a stock swap. Kinsus is a subsidiary of Asustek Computer.

Municom GmbH has been signed to represent Park Electrochemical's RF/microwave and advanced digital substrate materials in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... Municom GmbH has been signed to represent Park Electrochemical's RF/microwave and advanced digital substrate materials in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Municom will sell, distribute and warehouse products manufactured by Park's Neltec SA...

Electronics Acquisition LLC, a subsidiary of Cornell Dubilier Electronics, has acquired the Metal Clad Mica Capacitor Division.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 1, 2005... Electronics Acquisition LLC, a subsidiary of Cornell Dubilier Electronics, has acquired the Metal Clad Mica Capacitor Division of Silvered Electronic Mica Co. (SEMCO) in Willimantic, CT.

The sales and marketing plan: the benefits of strategic planning are many, but the planning process itself has its own rewards.(POWER SELLING)
May 1, 2005... DOES YOUR COMPANY have a strategic business plan? How about a formal marketing plan? Does your team sit down together at least once a year and hack out how you did this year and what you plan to do next year? If you are like most companies...

What type of company are you running? To serve a niche, you'd better have a good idea what that niche is.(ROI)
May 1, 2005... I USED TO hang out at a friend's house when I was growing up. A sign posted on his refrigerator read, "You are what you eat." Recently I have thought about that sign quite a bit. It seems that in our industry, the realities of profitably...

Loading effects on transmission lines, part 1: device loading can influence critical transmission line characteristics, and the design of high-speed PCBs.(INTERCONNECT STRATEGIES)
May 1, 2005... WHEN DEVICES SUCH as ICs are connected to high-speed PCB traces, their inductance and capacitance add to that trace's inductance and capacitance, thus loading down the line (1). This loading effect can alter certain transmission line...

Implementing lead-free wave soldering: higher levels of copper and iron can change the alloy and require new guidelines.(COUNTDOWN TO LEAD-FREE)
May 1, 2005... THE IMPLEMENTATION a lead-free wave soldering process will be successful only when multiple challenges are addressed. The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's (iNEMI's) Lead-Free Wave Soldering Project has identified specific...

The state of copper: as designers push the performance envelope, copper foil reacts to the stresses of life over 50.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2005... Copper foil has been used to form conductors on printed circuit boards for more than 50 years, ever since subtractively etched copper-clad laminates replaced labor-intensive point-to-point wiring. While advanced for the times, the boards of the...

More flex design tips: if you can design rigid circuit boards, there's no reason you can't design flexible circuitry too. If you do your homework, that is.(FLEXIBLE CIRCUITS)
May 1, 2005... Flexible circuits are a lot like rigid boards, but designing flex can give the most experienced PCB designer fits. What lulls many very good board designers into complacency is the fact that flex circuits typically are electrically simple but...

Revisiting the EDA pyramid: are you a power user, a mainstream user or a late adopter? Your company's infrastructure and your engineering organization may help make that differentiation for you.(EDA TOOLS)
May 1, 2005... For some reason, the pyramid has become ubiquitous in market research. Maybe it's just an electronics industry thing, but it keeps popping up every time someone wants to classify the market into different areas. One that's become common on...

China today: views and thoughts on the CPCA show and the benefits--and perils--of doing business in China.(CPCA WRAP-UP)
May 1, 2005... The China Printed Circuit Association show has been billed as the world's premiere PCB trade show. This year's event once again lived up to its reputation. CPCA had it all, from acrobats at one exhibitor's booth to exhibitors hawking...

Imaging system.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 1, 2005... Designed for high-volume throughput, the IX-3000 mask imaging system is designed for large FOV processing applications. Is said to be available with cassette-to-cassette wafer handling, panel-handling, robotics handling, or tape and reel...

X-ray processing software.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 1, 2005... An upgrade to the GTI-5000 x-ray image processing software includes a video recorder and image analysis workstation. The recorder allows streaming of full-sized grayscale x-ray images to disk at up to 30 frames per second. Images are captured...

Low pass filter.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 1, 2005... The S band planar surface low pass filter is low profile and compact, and allegedly an ideal surface-mountable solution for RF/microwave circuit design engineers. Dimensions are .442" long by .184" wide and .030" thick. The passband is up to...

Gantry.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... The Hercules Series Gantry has axes that can be ordered with iron core or ironless linear servo motors. For step-and-scan application, the scanning axis can be specified with zero-cogging LEB ironless linear servo motor. Rugged high-res optical...

Simulation technology.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... Agilent's EDA simulation software reportedly has simulation speed improvements of up to 50 times for large and complex circuits used in wireless communications, aerospace and defense applications. These improvements will be included in the...

Test socket.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... DCI's surface mount BGA test socket in now available for use with high-speed SERDES applications beyond 10Gb/s and another test socket for CSP and QFN devices. The pins have a radius interface to PCBs that allegedly extends board life and a...

3D software upgrade.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... Zuken's EM Designer 4.4 now supports integration with the CR-5000 Board Designer suite. The CADIF import option is said to optionally ignore objects on the inner electrical layers which are unnecessary for carrying out 3D design checking...

RF/Microwave laminate.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... Isola has launched three new products for the RF and Microwave market: IS640-300 with a nominal dielectric constant of 3.00 at 10 GHz, IS640-320 with a nominal dielectric constant of 3.20, and IS640-325 with a nominal dielectric constant of...

SMT inductors.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 1, 2005... The Pulse PG0255NL series of low profile, SMT flat coil inductors has a saturation current rating up to 30 amps and a heating current rating up to 38 amps. Said to be designed for the multiphase voltage regulator modules (VRMs) supporting the...

Welcome to the nanotechnology era: get small with carbon nanotubes that help fight ESD.(NO MYTHS ALLOWED)
May 1, 2005... WHEN HIGH-VOLUME production of 90 nm channel length transistors began last year, semiconductor technology officially entered the nanotechnology era. Coincidentally, Hyperion Catalysts' multiwalled carbon nanotubes may be critical in protecting...