Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture articles from September 2006

Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture archives from September 2006

A matter of degrees.(OUR LINE)
September 1, 2006... WE'VE just come through one of the hottest summers in recent history. Temperatures around the world set records as the mercury on thermometers soared. Scientists reminded us that the increases seen in global warming in the past few years is...

Don't snub via stub induced signal distortions.(LETTERS: our readers respond)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... Regarding Eric Bogatin's "Only Two Knobs to Tweak Above 3 GBps" article in the July 2006 issue of Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture, I would like to add a third important factor--via stub induced signal distortions. As a general rule,...

A/V sounds good.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... A/V SOUNDS GOOD Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only). % CHANGE APRIL MAY (r) JUNE * YTD Computers/ -1.2 6.7 -1.3...

PMI up, new orders down in July.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... TEMPE, AZ -- Backlogs at North American manufacturers slipped 3.5 points in July, new orders were down 1.8 points and inventories rose 3.6 points sequentially. Yet it wasn't enough to stop the sector from turning in its 38th straight month of...

EDA Consortium reports 10% revenue growth.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... SAN JOSE -- EDA industry revenues rose 10% in the first quarter year-over-year to $1.22 billion. Sales of PCB and related software and maintenance are forecast to climb 6.8% next year and 8.6% in 2008, according to the EDA Consortium...

ODMs solidify domination of mobile-PC manufacturing.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... EL SEGUNDO, CA -- Illustrating the increasing domination of Asian producers in the global mobile-PC market, 82.6% of notebook computers in 2005 were manufactured by contract manufacturers mainly in the Greater Shanghai area, according to...

Real-Time Locating Systems market taking off.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... CAMBRIDGE, UK -- The number of companies offering Real Time Locating Systems has tripled in the past year, according to a new report from analysts IDTechEx (idtechex.com). While in the past RTLS equipment has consisted of either very short...

Industry market snapshot.(MARKET WATCH)
September 1, 2006... INDUSTRY MARKET SNAPSHOT Book-to-bills of various components/equipment. FEB. MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE Semiconductor equipment (1) 1.01 1.03 1.11 1.11 1.14 Semiconductors (2)...

Titan PCB divisions announce record July shipments.(TITANIC SALES)
September 1, 2006... DALLAS -- Titan Global Holdings Inc. reported that its PCB divisions shipped a record $1.8 million during the month of July 2006. Bookings continue to rise as nine new customers were added during the month of July. Titan recently announced...

Three PCB makers reach record revenues in July.(JULY HIGHS)
September 1, 2006... TAIWAN -- PCB specialists Nanya PCB, Csun Manufacturing and Tripod Technology all reported monthly revenue highs in July. Due to rising demand for flip-chip substrates, Nanya estimates it had an average gross margin of 35% in the first half of...

Alarming facts about RoHS compliance.(GET ON BOARD)
September 1, 2006... FOSTER CITY, CA -- Arena Solutions has reported alarming results of its ongoing RoHS Readiness Survey. Launched on April 30, 2006, the survey polled hundreds of manufacturers who were not Arena customers to identify and assess risk based on 16...

AT&S tactics aid sales.(AROUND THE WORLD)
September 1, 2006... VIENNA -- AT&S reported better than expected Q1 results, causing the company to revise its yearly forecast. For the first time in its history, AT&S broke the barrier of EUR 100 million sales in a quarter, with revenues of EUR 105 million...

Vertex, Techvest form alliance.(AROUND THE WORLD)
September 1, 2006... TAIWAN -- PCB maker Vertex Precision Electronics announced an alliance with Taiwan PCB Techvest (TPT), which specializes in display-use PCBs. According to Vertex, its integration of TPT will help both PCB suppliers lower material costs and...

Aspocomp releases interim report.(THE RUNDOWN)
September 1, 2006... HELSINKI FINLAND -- Aspocomp Group reported net sales of 80.2 million [euro] for the period of January 1, 2006--June 30. 2006 compared to 75.4 million [euro] for the same period in 2005. According to the company, the total net sales of the...

Group establishes guiding principles for convergence.(PLAY BY THE RULES)
September 1, 2006... RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC -- The Manufacturing Interoperability Guideline Working Group, a collaborative venture of ISA, MIMOSA, OAGi, OPC and WBF, has established a set of principles for converging the OAGi, ISA-95, and B2MML activities. ...

iNEMI project to develop specs for medical electronic components.(MEDICAL SPECTACLE)
September 1, 2006... HERNDON, VA -- The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) has launched a new project to develop testing and use condition guidelines to help assure reliability of electronic components used in medical applications. The...

IPC.(FACES)
September 1, 2006... The IPC elected Glenn Wells of Multilayer Technology as the new chairman of the IPC Designers Council executive board. Wells has earned multiple degrees and worked for companies all over the country. He developed an associate degree program for...

Technic Inc.(FACES)
September 1, 2006... Eric Stafstrom has joined Technic Inc. as global product manager bringing with him over 20 years of plating, engineering, customer service and marketing experience in the PCB, semiconductor and metal finishing markets. Stafstrom has authored...

Merix Corp.(FACES)
September 1, 2006... Merix Corp. appointed Kelly E. Lang to vice president finance, effective immediately, and CFO, effective after the filing of the fiscal year 2006 Annual Report on Form 10-K. Lang has served with both industrial and technology companies. He most...

Park Electrochemical Corp.(FACES)
September 1, 2006... Park Electrochemical Corp. appointed James L. Zerby to vice president and controller of the company. Prior to joining Park, Zerby was CFO of Photocircuits Corp. Zerby received a B.A. degree in business administration from Gettysburg College in...

Tyco International Ltd.(IT'S A DEAL)
September 1, 2006... Tyco International Ltd. will sell the Tyco Printed Circuit Group business to TTM Technologies Inc. for $226 million in cash. The transaction has been approved by Tyco's board of directors and is expected to close in the fall of 2006.

Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) has renewed its agreement with Cadence Design Systems Inc. as a major EDA solutions provider for all of its R&D and engineering divisions.(IT'S A DEAL)
September 1, 2006... Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) has renewed its agreement with Cadence Design Systems Inc. as a major EDA solutions provider for all of its R&D and engineering divisions. The agreement allows ASTRI access to Cadence...

Flextronics International Inc. will manufacture and distribute Eastman Kodak Co. consumer digital cameras and will manage certain camera design and development functions.(IT'S A DEAL)
September 1, 2006... Flextronics International Inc. will manufacture and distribute Eastman Kodak Co. consumer digital cameras and will manage certain camera design and development functions. Kodak will divest its entire digital camera manufacturing requirements to...

Agilent Technologies has plans to acquire Xpedion Design Systems Inc. by Sept. 1 in order to drive innovation in the radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) sector.(IT'S A DEAL)
September 1, 2006... Agilent Technologies has plans to acquire Xpedion Design Systems Inc. by Sept. 1 in order to drive innovation in the radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) sector. Xpedion provides software for wireless and high-speed digital circuit and...

Events.(HAPPENINGS)(Calendar)
September 1, 2006... EVENTS SEPTEMBER 5-8 ELCOMP India Pragati Maidan Exhibition Center, New Delhi, India Contact: exhibitionsindia.com/elcomp/elcomp06.html 10-13 IMAPS Thermal Management 2006 ...

How full is your glass? The most optimistic embrace change and make difficult choices.(ROI)
September 1, 2006... WE ARE NOW in the second half of the first decade of the new millenium. It's hard to believe how different our industry looks a short seven years after the halcyon days of the late 1990s. There's no mistaking our world is a different place. ...

High-speed: PCB design basics: consistency in impedance requires cooperation and coordination between the designer and the fabricator to optimize success.(HIGH-SPEED DESIGN)
September 1, 2006... The signaling speed of ICs on PCBs is getting faster. If your company is not currently designing high-speed boards, it probably will soon. Some manufacturers have been shrinking die parts, making the edge rates of signals faster. Other...

How nanotechnology applies to electronics: nanowires and other structures using atomic cluster deposition show promise for the interconnections of the future.(NANOTECHNOLOGY IN ELECTRONICS)
September 1, 2006... We have no shortage of challenges in the electronics interconnect industry--rising raw materials costs driven by oil and energy hikes; falling prices as competition increases and prices are squeezed by a consolidating customer base; a...

Optimizing interconnect performance with eye diagrams: eye measurements can be used as an interconnect optimization tool with frequency, time and numeric domain simulators, eliminating any guesswork.(INTERCONNECT OPTIMIZATION)
September 1, 2006... When the data rate exceeds 3 Gbps in today's high-speed serial links, the digital board design is no longer a simple layout problem but becomes a microwave-engineering problem. Every individual interconnect component requires careful evaluation...

The greening of electronics: Celestica's CTO says global environmental initiatives are laying the groundwork for a massive shift in industry thinking.(LIFE AFTER LEAD)
September 1, 2006... Until recently, the industry was sharply focused on producing the latest and greatest products--meeting consumer demand for the newest models of cellphones, PDAs, DVD players and a host of other electronics products. In this business, getting...

DFA demands upfront attention: failure to consider PCB design and production requirements leads to costly loss in time-to-market and time-to-revenue.(DESIGN FOR ASSEMBLY)
September 1, 2006... Design for assembly (DFA) is critical to OEMs that outsource PCBs for design and manufacturing. If correctly performed, it shortens the product cycle, minimizes development cost and ensures a smooth transition into production from prototype...

The big get bigger: the largest PCB fabricators in Japan and Taiwan stretched their leads in 2005.(NTI 100)
September 1, 2006... It is the time of year that we compile the annual list of the world's largest PCB manufacturers. As noted in the past, with each year it gets harder to collect accurate data on bare board sales: As (many) fabricators of flexible circuits become...

Aiming high: the trend in Japanese PCB manufacturing is optimistic and aggressive.(THE FLEX MARKET)
September 1, 2006... THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY NEWS has been reporting 2006 forecasts and investment plans of the major circuit board manufacturers in Japan (TABLE 1). The current demand situation of the printed circuit industry in Asia has not been very...

High-frequency material.(off the SHELF)
September 1, 2006... RO4230 high frequency circuit material is said to extend the capabilities of the RO4000 product series used for antenna applications. It is a ceramic filled, glass reinforced hydrocarbon based material that reportedly provides controlled...

Design software.(off the SHELF)
September 1, 2006... Easy-PC 10 for Windows features hug mode routing where manually routed tracks automatically 'hug' and follow the path of previously laid tracks as closely as possible, while adhering to design spacing rules. An optional Gerber import reportedly...

Plated via fill.(off the SHELF)
September 1, 2006... The Cuprostar CVF1 Microvia Fill Process is specifically developed for filling blind microvias with copper while simultaneously plating through-holes. The process is compatible with vertical direct current plating equipment. Pulse periodic...

Laser.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... The ProtoLaser 100 is said to combine the capabilities of an advanced milling and drilling circuit board plotter with a sophisticated laser system. A special laser system removes the copper layer between the conductive strips without affecting...

Support software.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... The first Mentor processor support package for the ARM Cortex-M3 processor has been released. It was designed to work with the company's Seamless tool to expose hardware/software integration errors inherent in processor-based designs. ARM11...

Document viewing.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... Cimmetry has released 2D and 3D native document visualization for AutoCAD 2007, Mechanical Desktop 2007, Inventor 11 and Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0. Native document viewing is said to enable customers, suppliers and partners to instantly view...

Milling machine.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... The CPR-30/PCB milling machine can reportedly mill and drill double-sided PC boards and other materials, it has a working area of 360x280x40mm and comes standard with a high-frequency spindle motor of 30,O00rev/min, a face-milled-F-nut table,...

Design software.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... Zuken has released free footprint downloads for Altera's new MAX II CPLD FineLine BGA and Micro FineLine BGA packages. The packages reportedly meet the small form factor package and low power capabilities needed by designers of portable...

RoHS compliance.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
September 1, 2006... The EMA Compliance Assurance System assists companies with requirements for environmental legislations. Adjunct to the EMA EDM system, its architecture reportedly allows for plug in modules to handle the specifics of any legislation, with the...

SPICEing up impedance profiles: using SPICE simulation tools to predict impedance.(NO MYTHS ALLOWED)
September 1, 2006... HOW MANY CAPACITORS do you need in the power distribution? When do you need to worry about parallel resonances? What roles do power and ground planes play in the impedance of power delivery network (PDN)? These sorts of questions can be...