Printed Circuit Design & Manufacture back issues from May 2005:
Taking it to the hill.(OUR LINE)
May 01, 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. Americans in particular have a soft ...
Buying trends 'on display'.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 2005 ... <Pre> Trends in the U.S. electronics equipment market (shipments only). % CHANGE DEC. JAN. (r) FEB. * YTD Computers/electronics products 0.7 3.7 -1.010.2 Computers ...
Production steady in March.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 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 manufacturing sector maintained its ...
IC downturn waning.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 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 this incident into the future as one month does ...
Computing outsourcing still no. 1.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 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, including revenues from EMS and ODM manufacturing, ...
Top EMS firms up 22% in '04.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 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 ...
Industry market snapshot.(MARKET WATCH)
May 01, 2005 ... <Pre> Book-to-bills of various components/equipment. NOV. DEC.JAN. FEB. Semiconductor equipment (1) 1.00.99 0.80 0.78 Semiconductors (2) 1.3% ...
EDA revenues up 3% for Q4, year.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 01, 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 $3.9 billion reported in 2003. ...
AutoCAD pirate gets jail, probation.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 01, 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 resident was also sentenced to three years of ...
PCB west draws 1,400, good reviews.(BUT NORTH AMERICA FELL)
May 01, 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 1,400 attendees comprised of corporate ...
Survey: offshoring no. 2 reason for tech worker layoffs.(AT LEAST IT'S NOT NO. 1)
May 01, 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 being laid off, was a business downturn. But ...
Ft. Collins latest Celestica plant to fall.(NOT AGAIN)
May 01, 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 to ...
Park shuffles, hires managers.(A WALK IN THE PARK)
May 01, 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. Groehl, the current senior vice president, ...
Capitol Hill Day to focus on int'l trade.(ENFORCE THE EXISTING RULES FIRST)
May 01, 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 18, 2005, in Washington, D.C. ...
Data Circuits gains ZBC license.(AROUND THE WORLD / MANUFACTURING)
May 01, 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 0.002" glass reinforced epoxy ...
Solectron losses down, growth too.(AROUND THE WORLD / MANUFACTURING)
May 01, 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 losses dropped to $3.4 million from $68 ...
Events.(HAPPENINGS)(Calendar)
May 01, 2005 ... <Pre> MAY 410 Steps to Effective RoHS Compliance Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA Contact: JoAnn Stromberg, (952) 920-7682; joann@smta.org 11-12NEPCON 2005 Hilton Metropole, Brighton, UK Contact: ...
Intercept Technology.(FACES)
May 01, 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 Georgia Tech and an MBA from Emory University ....
Venture Outsource Group.(FACES)
May 01, 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 ...
Electronics Workbench has opened a direct sales and technical support office in Sao Paulo, Brazil.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 01, 2005 ... Electronics Workbench has opened a direct sales and technical support office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The company's Brazilian employees are ...
YESTech.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 01, 2005 ... YESTech has opened a China office to provide sales and ...
Envirotronics has named Tecnologia Avanzada Electroquim as the exclusive sales and service agent in Central Mexico.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 01, 2005 ... Envirotronics has named Tecnologia Avanzada Electroquim as the exclusive sales and service agent in Central Mexico. Founded in 1982, ...
Taiwanese packaging substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology will acquire flex PCB maker Flexium Interconnect through a stock swap.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 01, 2005 ... Taiwanese packaging substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology will acquire flex PCB ...
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 01, 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 ...
Electronics Acquisition LLC, a subsidiary of Cornell Dubilier Electronics, has acquired the Metal Clad Mica Capacitor Division.(IT'S A DEAL)
May 01, 2005 ... Electronics Acquisition LLC, a subsidiary of Cornell Dubilier Electronics, has acquired the ...
The sales and marketing plan: the benefits of strategic planning are many, but the planning process itself has its own rewards.(POWER SELLING)
May 01, 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 in our industry, I would venture to ...
What type of company are you running? To serve a niche, you'd better have a good idea what that niche is.(ROI)
May 01, 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 doing business in the new millenium ...
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 01, 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 properties, such as characteristic impedance (Zo) and ...
Implementing lead-free wave soldering: higher levels of copper and iron can change the alloy and require new guidelines.(COUNTDOWN TO LEAD-FREE)
May 01, 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 materials, technologies and processes that are ...
The state of copper: as designers push the performance envelope, copper foil reacts to the stresses of life over 50.(Cover Story)
May 01, 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 Early Space Age were relatively ...
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 01, 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 mechanically complex. When you've designed ...
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 01, 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 the PCB side of the fence is Gartner ...
China today: views and thoughts on the CPCA show and the benefits--and perils--of doing business in China.(CPCA WRAP-UP)
May 01, 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 counterfeit wares on the show floor. (And being detained ...
Imaging system.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 01, 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 systems as accessories or options. Features ...
X-ray processing software.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 01, 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 and written to disk in real-time and ...
Low pass filter.(off the SHELF: MACHINES MATERIALS TOOLS SYSTEMS SOFTWARE)
May 01, 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 2500 MHz with a passband ripple of .01 dB ....
Gantry.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
Simulation technology.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
Test socket.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
3D software upgrade.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
RF/Microwave laminate.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
SMT inductors.(OTHERS OF NOTE)
May 01, 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 ...
Welcome to the nanotechnology era: get small with carbon nanotubes that help fight ESD.(NO MYTHS ALLOWED)
May 01, 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 such parts from the potential destruction from ...