CircuiTree articles from July 2008

CircuiTree archives from July 2008

Say goodnight, Gracie.(My Line)(Column)
July 1, 2008... By this time perhaps many of you have learned that I am leaving CircuiTree. My tenure with the magazine may have been abbreviated, but I am still reeling from all the things that took place over the past 18 months. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

IPC releases April industry results.(Industry Review News)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Bannockburn, Ill. -- IPC released the April findings from its monthly North American PCB Statistical Program, reporting that rigid PCB shipments were up 12.2 percent and bookings were up 5.6 percent over April 2007. Rigid PCB shipments were up...

IC packaging market topped USD 30 billion in 2007.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... San Jose, Calif. -- According to Electronic Trend Publications (ETP), in 2007, there were 151 billion ICs produced, making the value of the worldwide IC packaging market USD 30.5 billion. ETP predicts modest growth to continue in 2008 and 2009...

Mania technologie files for further insolvencies.(Industry Review News)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Weilrod -- In the framework of the restructuring of the Mania Group, its two 100 percent subsidiaries, Mania Deutschland GmbH and Mania Entwicklungsgesellschaft GmbH, also filed for insolvency. Arno Wolf, lawyer in Kronberg im Taunus, was...

Intel, Samsung Electronics, and TSMC reach agreement for 450 mm wafer manufacturing transition.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Santa Clara, Calif. -- Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics, and TSMC reached an agreement on the need for industry-wide collaboration to target a transition to larger, 450 mm-sized wafers starting in 2012. This transition would enable the...

Hitachi Semiconductor names Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials supplier of the year.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Singapore -- Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, CMP Technologies, and Nitta Haas Incorporated received Hitachi Semiconductor Singapore Pte. Ltd's (HNS) 2008 Supplier Excellence Award; this is the second year Rohm and Haas was honored in the...

IPCA and MMI to co-host electronicIndia 2008/IPCA Expo 2008.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Bangalore -- The Indian Printed Circuit Association (IPCA) joined with Messe Munchen International (MMI) to co-host electronicIndia 2008/IPCA Expo 2008, to be held September 2 to 5, 2008, in Bangalore. electronicIndia 2008/IPCA Expo 2008 will...

Net sales up for DDi Corp.(Industry Review News)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Anaheim, Calif. -- For Q1 FY, DDi Corp. reported net sales of USD 47.4, up 9 percent from Q1 FY 07 and 5 percent from Q4 FY 07. Gross margin as a percentage of net sales for Q1 FY 08 increased to 20.6 percent from Q1 FY 07 and also improved...

Mentor announces 20th annual PCB Technology Leadership Award winners.(Industry Review News)(Awards list)
July 1, 2008... Wilsonville, Ore. -- Mentor Graphics Corporation held its 20th annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards ceremony, recognizing engineers and CAD designers who use innovative methods and design tools to address today's complex PCB systems design...

Park Electrochemical reports fourth quarter and fiscal year results.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)
July 1, 2008... Melville, N.Y. -- For the fourth quarter ended March 2, Park Electrochemical Corp. reported sales of USD 60,581,000, compared to sales of USD 59,826,000 for the fourth quarter of last year. For the fiscal year ended March 2, Park's sales were...

Valor releases first quarter numbers.(Industry Review News)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Yavne, Israel -- Valor Computerized Systems Ltd. reported revenues of 10.7 million for Q1 FY 08, a 3 percent increase from USD 10.3 million in Q1 FY 07. Net profit increased 91 percent to USD 1.5 million, compared to USD 0.8 million in Q4 FY...

Rohm and Haas circuit board technologies sales up.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)
July 1, 2008... Philadelphia -- For Q1 FY 08, Rohm and Haas reported a 13 percent year-over-year increase in circuit board technologies sales. In addition, sales were USD 2,507 million, up 16 percent from Q1 FY 07, and adjusted earnings per share, excluding...

First quarter results available from Orbotech.(Industry Review News)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Yavne, Israel -- Orbotech Ltd. reported revenues for Q1 FY 08 of USD 100.5 million, down from USD 103.6 million in Q4 FY 07 and USD 86.1 million in Q1 FY 07. Net income for Q1 FY 08 was USD 3.7 million, or USD 0.11 per share (diluted), compared...

Hon Hai sales continue to increase in 2008.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Taipei -- Hon Hai reported single-month nonconsolidated sales of TWD 102.865 billion for April, a year-over-year increase of 21.69 percent. For the first four months of 2008, accumulated sales increased 22.11 percent year-over-year to TWD...

Mentor aligns product groups to address IC implementation challenges.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Wilsonville, Ore. -- Mentor Graphics Corporation aligned its IC implementation project lines under the Design-to-Silicon division to better address design and manufacturing challenges of 45 nm and smaller process codes. Vice president and...

Advanced Circuits purchases Orbotech inkjet legend printer.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Billerica, Mass. -- Orbotech, Inc., announced that Advanced Circuits purchased and installed a second Newprint Maxi inkjet legend printer for its bare PCB operation in Aurora, Colo. With Orbotech's inkjet systems, Advanced Circuits is able to...

AT&S reports record sales for 2007/2008.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)
July 1, 2008... Vienna -- AT&S reported record sales for 2007/2008 with EUR 485.7 million. Net profit was EUR 41.3 million, a 32 percent increase for the period; the recommended dividend is EUR 0.34 per share. Revenues were also up at EUR 485.7 million, a 4...

Coretec numbers down in first quarter.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Toronto -- For Q1 FY 08, Coretec reported revenues of USD 18.5 million, an 18.9 percent decrease from Q1 FY 07 and a 2.2 percent decrease from Q4 FY 07. Gross profit for Q1 FY 08 was 15.4 percent of sales compared to 20.3 percent for Q1 FY 07...

MFLEX has strong second quarter.(Industry Review News)(Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc.)(Financial report)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Anaheim, Calif. -- Multi-Fineline Electronix, Inc., reported record Q2 FY 08 net sales of USD 163.9 million, a 45 percent increase over Q2 FY 07. This increase is primarily due to increased sales to three of the company's key customers. Net...

Bloch new Mentor VP.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Wilsonville, Ore. -- Mentor Graphics Corporation promoted Simon Bloch to vice president and general manager of the Design and Synthesis Division; in this role, he is responsible for the company's FPGA and electronic system level design and...

Samsung Techwin and Valor form.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Technology Partnership Yavne, Israel -- Samsung Techwin and Valor Computerized Systems Ltd. established a technology partnership for the integration of Samsung Techwin's pick and place machine interfaces into Valor's software products. The...

Endicott awarded USD 148.6 million contract modification from DoD.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Endicott, N.Y. -- Endicott Interconnect Technologies was awarded a USD 148.6 million contract modification from the U.S. Department of Defense. The modification is for the continuation of the current program to produce card frame assemblies,...

Rohm and Haas elects Lovely executive vice president, names Brondeau president and chief operating officer.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Philadelphia -- The Rohm and Haas Company board of directors elected Richard R. Lovely executive vice president. Lovely joined Rohm and Haas in December 2007 as vice president, corporate director of human resources. Previously, he was vice...

Compass Diversified Holdings reports first quarter financial results.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Westport, Conn. -- Compass Diversified Holdings reported that cash flow available for distribution and reinvestment (CAD) increased to USD 9.9 million for Q1 FY 08, up from USD 6.4 million in Q1 FY 07. From April 1, 2007, through March 31,...

Dramowicz and Lach, new Merix VPs.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Beaverton, Ore. -- George Dramowicz joined Merix Corporation as its vice president of quality. Previously, Dramowicz was director of corporate/global quality at Celestica International. Steven N. Lach was named vice president of North American...

Record results for Flextronics in fourth quarter.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Singapore -- Flextronics had a record fourth quarter, reporting net sales of USD 7.8 billion, a 66 percent increase. Q4 FY 08 adjusted net income also increased 76 percent to USD 215 million. Net sales for FY 08 increased 46 percent to a record...

Celestica announces first quarter results.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)
July 1, 2008... Toronto -- Celestica Inc. reported revenue of USD 1,836 million for Q1 FY 08; this is compared to USD 1,842 million in Q1 FY 07. Net earnings on a GAAP basis Q1 FY 08 were USD 29.8 million, or USD 0.13 per share, compared to GAAP net loss of...

Endicott receives Frost & Sullivan Award for Growth Excellence.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Palo Alto, Calif. -- Frost & Sullivan recognized Endicott Interconnect Technologies, Inc., with the North American Award for Growth Excellence of the Year. Endicott received this award for demonstrating excellence in manufacturing, revenue...

Cadence names new CFO and CAO.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... San Jose, Calif. -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc., appointed Kevin S. Palatnik chief financial officer, succeeding William Porter, who was named chief administrative officer. Palatnik has been with Cadence for 12 years and has served as...

Advanced Circuits awarded fifth gold award from Metro Wastewater Reclamation District.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Aurora, Colo. -- Advanced Circuits was awarded a Gold Award from the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District (MWRD) of Colorado; this is the fifth award for Advanced Circuits. Manufacturers must be 100 percent compliant with MWRD, Colorado...

Thomas Smach resigns as Flextronics CFO, Paul Read to replace him.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Singapore -- Thomas J. Smach resigned as chief financial officer of Flextronics. Paul Read was appointed to this position upon Smach's departure. Read most recently served as executive vice president of finance for Flextronics' worldwide...

Don Duncan new Freedom CAD CTO.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Nashua, N.H. -- Don Duncan is the new chief technology officer for Freedom CAD Services, Inc. Previously, Duncan spent 16 years in engineering at Solectron/Flextronics.

R&D Circuits installs Orbotech LDI system.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Billerica, Mass. -- R&D Circuits Inc. purchased and installed an Orbotech Paragon[TM]-8000 laser direct imaging (LDI) system for its bare PCB operation in South Plainfield, N.J. The Paragon LDI system provides outstanding advantages for...

Camtek numbers up in first quarter.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Migdal Haemek, Israel -- Camtek Ltd.'s numbers were up in Q1 FY 08, recording revenues of USD 21.3 million, a 47 percent increase over Q1 FY 07 and a slight increase over Q4 FY 07. For Q1 FY 08, gross profit margin improved to 44.5 percent, as...

Cadence releases first quarter results.(Industry Review News)(Financial report)
July 1, 2008... San Jose, Calif. -- For Q1 FY 08, Cadence Design Systems, Inc., reported revenue of USD 287 million, compared to USD 365 million for Q1 FY 07. On a GAAP basis, Cadence reported a net loss of USD 19 million, or USD 0.07 per share on a diluted...

Jabil announces quarterly dividend.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... St. Petersburg, Fla. -- Jabil Circuit, Inc.'s board of directors approved payment of a quarterly dividend to shareholders of record as of May 15. The dividend, USD 0.07 per share, was payable on June 2.

Chris Brown new regional sales manager for Asymtek.(Industry Review News)
July 1, 2008... Carlsbad, Calif. -- Asymtek promoted Chris Brown to regional sales manager for the U.K. and Ireland. In his new position, Brown will identify new business opportunities, help customers achieve dispensing goals, and oversee the region's sales...

Fine Lines in High Yield (Part CLIV): advances in copper plating (Part A).(Tech Talk)
July 1, 2008... At a 2004 IEEE symposium on VLSI circuits, Shekhar Borkar (director of circuit research for microprocessors, Intel) expressed that he didn't see anything to replace copper. This remark referred to the use of copper in IC fabrication, in first-...

Back to basics part 22 -design features for flexible circuit coatings.(Flexible Thinking.)
July 1, 2008... Those who read the last installment of this series will recall it was focused on flexible circuit coatings, which included: cover layers, cover costs, and cover films. There is inevitably a need to access features through the coating regardless...

Toward a PCB production floor metric for Go/No Go testing of lossy high-speed transmission lines.(Cover story)
July 1, 2008... As designers strive to extract ever more performance from high-speed transmission lines on FR-4 substrates and their high-speed derivatives, a requirement has arisen for a practical and robust "Go/No Go" test technique for loss to be deployed...

An update on the effects of laminate weave on jitter and skew in gigabit and higher signals.(Intelligent Design)
July 1, 2008... In my April 2007 column I reported on the effects of laminate weaves on the quality of gigabit per second and higher signals. There had been several reports of laminate weave causing system failures due to the lack of uniform distribution of...

What's happening-2010: part 3-the impact of technology roadmaps in the last decade.(CircuiTree 20-Year Retrospective)
July 1, 2008... By 1997, the IPC roadmap was achieving greater importance in the industry. Each OEM that participated in the IPC effort felt that its product needed to be identified as an emulator or product example. Somehow each roadmap needed to identify the...

Flex circuitry versus wiring harnesses.(Ask the Flexperts)
July 1, 2008... Q: How much more reliable are flexes over wiring harnesses? I've heard 75 percent thrown about, but I can't find the data to support it. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A: While there is little doubt that flex circuitry is generally more...

IPC Energy Benchmarking Survey: energy conservation proves to be cost-effective.(Environmentally Speaking)
July 1, 2008... Given the recent flurry of attention to energy use and its concurrent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, IPC conducted an Energy Benchmarking Survey to help the electronics industry proactively prepare to comply with potential GHG-curbing...

Plastic electronics: key players and drivers, part 2.(BPA Growth Curves)
July 1, 2008... Plastic electronics technology will be best placed to open up new applications that in the main cannot technically and commercially be addressed with current electronics technology. A good example is rollable displays. Organic light emitting...

Considering design variants to maximize process efficiency.
July 1, 2008... In today's product environment, many products compose families of similar base-capability devices with increased feature sets defining several different products. For example, a base-capability MP3 player may be available in a family featuring,...

Electronic equipment, semiconductors, and PCBs: has short-term North American growth peaked?(Market Outlook)
July 1, 2008... In the first quarter of this year the North American electronics industry seemed to weather the recession storm clouds reasonably well. However, as the second quarter unfurls, there may be more reason for concern. In spite of the weak dollar...

Camtek automated system for optical inspection of finished high-density PCBs for mobile products.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... Mustang is Camtek Ltd.'s new line of automated systems for optical inspection of finished high-density PCBs used in the production of mobile consumer products. Camtek developed the Mustang to answer the need for fast, reliable, and consistent...

Minco complete line of temperature sensors, sensor accessories, transmitters, and instruments.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... Minco offers a complete line of temperature sensors, sensor accessories, transmitters, and instruments for use in process control, building automation, defense, aerospace, industrial and commercial equipment, and machinery and motor protection....

ERNI Electronics Connector Application Wizard.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... ERNI Electronics' Connector Application Wizard helps simplify the selection process to match the ideal connector to the specified application. For the Wizard, ERNI divided the typical PCB configurations into four application areas: PCBs...

Christopher Associates PCB inspection technology.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... Christopher Associates' Machvision Hole Doctor is an advanced hole verification system for printed circuit fabrication applications. An in-line, conveyorized system for the inspection and verification of hole count, hole diameters, locational...

Version 10 of downstream's verification and optimization PCB solution.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... DownStream Technologies, LLC's CAM 350[R] Release 10 is the latest enhanced version of its solution for the verification and optimization of PCBs; much of this version's new functionality reflects input directly from the product's user base....

Addition to Anderson Power SB Connector Series.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... An addition to Anderson Power Products' dual pole, SB[R] Connector Line was created specifically for customers with applications that must perform in harsh environments. The High Performance SB[R] Connector Series is made of a high-performance...

Polyimide product family from stablcor.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... Stablcor Incorporated offers the ST10 Polyimide product family, and the new ST10-LC909 is a more reliable, price-competitive replacement product for use in controlling the CTE of PCBs. Previously, the ability to control CTE was limited to...

Automated Conformal Coating Inspection System from YESTech.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... YESTech's B-UV Automated Conformal Coating Inspection System offers electronic manufacturers an automated, simple, and convenient solution for inspection. The new system automates the inspection process for quality, consistency, and thickness...

RBP Chemical enhanced performance environmentally friendly cleaner.(Technical Product Spotlights)
July 1, 2008... RBP Chemical Technology's Layer Clean NP is an acid, nonchelating, nonchloride cleaner containing no phosphates. Layer Clean NP removes chromate conversion coating from cooper laminate as well as fingerprints and oxides. When used prior to...