Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture articles from October 2004

Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture archives from October 2004

Who will design tomorrow's PCBs?(Our Line)
October 1, 2004... I hate to say it, but PCB design professionals may be slowly becoming extinct. They're at least, worthy of being on the endangered list. Not because they're succumbing to a rare layout-related disease, but because they're retiring faster than...

ICs turn down.(Market Watch)
October 1, 2004... ICs TURN DOWN Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only). % CHANGE MAY JUNE JULY YTD Computers/electronics products...

August manufacturing growth slower.(Market Watch)
October 1, 2004... TEMPE, AZ -- The rate of growth in the manufacturing sector slowed in August but new orders and production remained strong. Manufacturing grew for the 15th consecutive month, said the Institute for Supply Management (www.ism.ws), based on its...

Report: server shipments up 25% over 2003.(Market Watch)
October 1, 2004... STAMFORD, CT -- Worldwide server revenue rose 7.7% in the second quarter, topping $11.5 billion, reported tech research firm Gartner Inc. Shipments were up 24.5% over last year, to 1.6 million units. Based on server revenues, IBM...

Gartner boosts chip revenue outlook.(Market Watch)
October 1, 2004... FRANKFURT -- Dismissing fears of an impending downturn, Gartner Dataquest in late August inched up its 2004 forecast for global semiconductor sales. The research firm predicts revenues will grow 27% this year, to $226 billion. Gartner...

Industry market snapshot.(Market Watch)
October 1, 2004... INDUSTRY MARKET SNAPSHOT Book-to-bills of various components/equipment. APRIL MAY JUNE JULY Semiconductor equipment (1) 1.13 1.10 1.08 1.05 Semiconductors (2) ...

The Impact of Lead-Free Seminar.(Design)
October 1, 2004... STILL NOT SURE what the move to lead-free means to your job? The Impact of Lead-Free Seminar is coming to a city near you. Learn about industry and government regulations, product development, lifecycles, outsourcing, costs of non-conformance...

Cadence to list on NASDAQ and NYSE.(Design)
October 1, 2004... SAN JOSE -- NASDAQ has approved Cadence Design Systems' listing application. With this approval, Cadence joins six other companies that trade on both the NASDAQ National Market and the NYSE. Cadence's ticker symbol on both the NYSE and NASDAQ...

Carnegie spin-off snares 1.25 m funding.(Autoplacement Software)
October 1, 2004... PITTSBURGH, PA -- Desantage landed $1.25 million in funding led by the Spencer Trask Software and Information Technology Group. The company has raised $1.7 million so far this year. Desantage, a spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University, is...

Intercept initiates new interface.(New GUI)
October 1, 2004... ATLANTA -- Intercept Technology is phasing in a new GUI that will ultimately be the standard user interface for all of Intercept's applications. The more modern GUI was developed to enhance user performance while decreasing training time and...

NEMI releases Tin Whisker requirements.(Whisker Update)
October 1, 2004... HERNDON, VA -- NEMI's Tin Whisker User Group has released revised recommendations for tin whisker acceptance test requirements. The group published a draft set of recommendations in May and, after soliciting input from suppliers, revised its...

Book-to-bill up slightly.(Flex Still Rising)
October 1, 2004... NORTHBROOK, IL -- IPC announced a book-to-bill ratio of 1.10 for July 2004, up slightly from June. Separately, the book-to-bill ratios in July 2004 were 0.99 for rigid PCBs and 1.57 for flexible circuits. For rigid PCBs and flexible...

Bairnco settles suit, takes $24.6 m.(Manufacturing)
October 1, 2004... LAKE MARY, FL -- Bairnco Corp. has reached an agreement with the Keene Creditors Trust to settle the long-running NOL lawsuit. Under the settlement, which is subject to formal approval by an advisory committee for the trust and to final...

DuPont raises specialty resin price.(Supply and Demand)
October 1, 2004... WILMINGTON, DE -- DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers (P&IP) announced a $0.05/1b. price increase globally for DuPont Crystar specialty PET resins effective Sept. 1, 2004, or as customer contracts allow. DuPont said the company could no...

Events.(Happenings)(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... OCTOBER 4-8 PCB DESIGN CONFERENCE EAST Manchester, NH. Contact: UP Media Group, 678-589-8800. www.pcbeast.com 5-7 EPC 2004 Cologne, Germany, Contact: www.eipc.org 11-14 Advanced Technology Workshop on Optoelectronics...

Paramount Laminates.(Faces)
October 1, 2004... Paramount Laminates named Bill Wilhelm East Coast sales representative, responsible for all sales and activities on the East Coast. He has over 20 years experience in sales and marketing with companies including Isola, Allied Signal and...

Plexus Corp.(Faces)
October 1, 2004... Plexus Corp. has appointed Ralf Boer to its board of directors. Boer is Chairman and CEO of the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP. He holds a bachelor's from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a JD (magna cure laude) from the University of...

Three-Five Systems Inc.(Faces)
October 1, 2004... Three-Five Systems Inc. has named David A. Prunier senior director and general manager of the company's new product introduction and medical manufacturing facility in Redmond, Washington. Prunier has 23 years of contract manufacturing...

Maurice Hubert has formed a new company, Maurice Hubert Associates.(It's A Deal)
October 1, 2004... Maurice Hubert has formed a new company, Maurice Hubert Associates.The new company will continue to be the UK distributors for Piergiacomi sud., M+B Plating Racks, Bieffebi spa. and PCK s.r.l.

DEK and Dow Corning have signed an equipment alliance in an effort to maximize customer service.(It's A Deal)
October 1, 2004... DEK and Dow Corning have signed an equipment alliance in an effort to maximize customer service. Dow Corning will concentrate on streamlining the integration of materials and equipment used in board-level assembly and back-end packaging, and...

Trilogy Circuits Inc.(It's A Deal)
October 1, 2004... Trilogy Circuits Inc. has completed construction of a state-of-the-art PCB design and assembly facility in Richardson, TX (below). Trilogy specializes in new product development and low-volume rapid prototype assembly.

Air Products.(It's A Deal)
October 1, 2004... Air Products will begin rebuilding its nitric acid purification facility in Pueblo, CO. The upgrade is a result of an accident that damaged the facility earlier this year. The construction will not interfere with normal plant operations or with...

Lloyd Doyle.(It's A Deal)
October 1, 2004... Automatic optical test manufacturer Lloyd Doyle has installed a Phasor fluorescent/CCD system at Litton Systems Inc.

Believe in our board shops: your products are not commodities, and you deserve all due respect.(Power Selling)
October 1, 2004... THE TIME HAS come for me to discuss what I believe about the board industry and why it's important to the concept of power selling. It is time that I declare my goals for helping North American board shops. First of all, I believe in our...

Seven habits of a healthy industry: if we institute these practices, we can turn this industry around. But we'll have to cooperate.(ROI)
October 1, 2004... AFTER TAKING TIME this summer to talk with friends in other industries--industries that are doing better than ours--I've created a wish list of habits I'd like to see our industry adopt. I call these my "Seven Habits Of A Healthy Industry." ...

Stub or no stub? Topology analysis can provide optimum system performance.(Interconnect Strategies)
October 1, 2004... WE WILL DISCUSS how to evaluate a network topology towards achieving optimum signal quality. Two different topologies--one with and one without a stub--are analyzed via PSpice simulations. When designing a high-speed PCB the correct...

Intelligent data transfer: are we smart enough to make the change from Gerber?(CAM Works)
October 1, 2004... MY MARCH 2004 column on intelligent data transfer generated some interesting comments about the slow transition away from Gerber. Many users indicated that they were still using Gerber because it was provided "free" in their CAD system, while...

Man vs. machine: many PCB designers have a love-hate relationship with their design tools: they love the time automation saves them, but hate giving up control. An EDA vendor looks at the delicate balance between too much automation and not enough.(EDA Tools)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... Someone once said that in product design, having the idea is the hardest part. But he never had to lay out a 32-bit processor board by hand using tape and tracing paper. Actually, the hardest part of product design is balancing the complexity...

A good first impression: those first few minutes of an interview could cost you the job.(Career Care)
October 1, 2004... LET US ASSUME you are in the job market. You have done your research, know the three companies for whom you want to work, networked your way into them and things are looking good. Now you are on your way to an interview with a human resources...

Hot spots and heatsinks: because the time to uncover your board's steamy side is before it can fail the 'smoke test.'.(Thermal Management)
October 1, 2004... If you ever have the chance to read Tony Kordyban's "Hot Air Rises and Heatsinks: Everything You Know About Cooling Electronics is Wrong," do it. It's a fun read and offers some great thoughts on many ideas found in this article. Remember,...

PCI Express verification: with the right game plan, microwave design doesn't have to be a scary proposition.(Signal Integrity)
October 1, 2004... The high-tech landscape is characterized by discontinuous change. The widespread move from parallel to serial interconnect technologies is enabling device and system manufacturers to deliver radical innovations in performance, form factor,...

Mass imaging processes for via-filling: as via-filling processes mature, enclosed-head screen-printing offers an alternative to the squeegee.(Screen Printing)
October 1, 2004... The growing use of high-I/O semiconductors, particularly BGA packages that also impose dense routing constraints, is forcing board designers to migrate vias into the pad. This not only supports greater component density, but can also enhance...

Artwork protection films for phototools: APFs and attention to detail can improve the PCB imaging process.(Better Phototooling)
October 1, 2004... MY JULY COLUMN focused on artwork protection films. These polyester protection films--in .00023" and .00013" (6 and 3.5 [micro]m)--are laminated to the working phototool. An increasing number of PCB manufacturers are discovering that APF is an...

Layout software.(off the Shelf)
October 1, 2004... CADSTAR 7.0 includes increased routing precision for high-density and miniaturized boards, improved place-and-route automation, definition of lengthening track patterns constraints through a graphical user interface and a search tool....

Geometry creation tool.(off the Shelf)
October 1, 2004... IC2 PkgXpert 2.5 was designed to create and repurpose accurate, consistent package geometries using industry standard/user-defined specifications. Said to help OEMs and CEMs streamline the board manufacturing process by creating a...

Thermal material.(off the Shelf)
October 1, 2004... Loctite PowerstrateXtreme is a reworkable phase change thermal interface material suited for use between a heatsink and various heat-dissipating components. Supplied as e freestanding film between two release liners, the material is said to...

Curing lamp.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... The Maxima ML-3500C produces a steady-state UV-A (365 nm) intensity of 90,000 [micro]W/[cm.sup.2] at 6 inches, said to ensure extra-fast curing of circuit boards, epoxies and resins. Weighs 2.5 lbs. and features an ergonomical design and...

Simulation software.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... SIMPLORER v7, designed for large-scale, multi-domain systems, reportedly features a powerful new scripting interface, enhanced optimization and statistical analysis tools, extended VHDL-AMS functionality and new model parameterization tools....

Lead-free assessment.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... The Pb-Free Readiness Assessment is an online, interactive tool for manufacturers preparing for a lead-free work environment. Companies can identify their strengths and weaknesses in implementing a lead-free workflow. Users answer questions in...

CAM system.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... CAM350 Release 8.6 features cross-probing integration to PCB layout tools and updates the DXF interface to the AutoCAD 2004 specification. Design errors can be highlighted in CAM350 and their locations shown in the CAD software. Can also be...

Exposure machines.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... The EXPOMAT AEX-II is an automated high-speed precision exposure machine that reportedly provides production speeds of up to 160 inner layers per hour, while producing [+ or -] 2 micron alignment and repeatability accuracy. The EXPOMAT AEXII-H,...

IBIS-SPICE conversion.(Others Of Note)
October 1, 2004... The updated IBIS2SPICE Converter is said to support all 14 IBIS model types and convert IBIS models up to and including version 3.2. IBIS models are converted to accurate SPICE models for typical, best-case and worst-case process corners. SPICE...

Riddle me this, CAD man: when is a transmission line not a transmission line?(No Myths Allowed)
October 1, 2004... THE SHORT ANSWER is, never. A transmission line is always a transmission line and always behaves like a transmission line, no matter how long or how short it is. One of the important properties of a transmission line is the reflection of...