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News
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Fabrinet Named 2004’s Best Manufacturer
SAN FRANCISCO - Fabrinet received the award for Best Manufacturer of the Year 2004 at the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s 9th Annual Business Excellence Awards Dinner held in Bangkok, Thailand. Fabrinet was recognized for its manufacturing technologies in the areas of precision electromechanical and optomechanical components and modules, as well as process engineering and supply-chain management across the telecom, datacom, automotive and imaging industries. The company uses lean manufacturing and six sigma strategies in its business. The award is presented to the company that best demonstrates a commitment to high standards in the manufacturing sector. Candidates for the award were judged on peer and industry recognition, company-established policies and procedures meant to ensure product integrity and the production of relevant products.
PCB Book-to-bill ratioMay Book-to-Bill Ratio Gains Slightly
NORTHBROOK, Ill. - The IPC IMS/PCB book-to-bill ratio for May 2005 rose to 1.03, calculated by dividing the value of orders booked over the past three months by the value of sales billed during the same period. IPC reports separate statistics for the rigid PCB and flexible circuit segments of the industry, with a book-to-bill of 1.04 for rigid PCBs and 0.98 for flexible circuits. For these two segments combined, sales billed (shipments) in May 2005 fell 7.8% year-over-year, and orders booked dropped 17% from May 2004.
May’s overall book-to-bill level rose from last month’s numbers, while orders booked for May 2005 fell 17% from last year.
Joint Venture Enables Lead-free Research
MONTERREY, Mexico - The electronics group of Henkel and the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores Monterrey (Monterrey Technology Institute) have teamed to conduct lead-free solder research, provide local customer support and offer educational opportunities. The partnership gives Henkel’s customers access to up-to-date materials research while helping them prepare for technological changes. A strong branch of the partnership is a research project in which the Henkel and Tec de Monterrey technical teams will study and characterize the compatibility behavior of tin/lead and lead-free solder pastes with several components and PCB surface finishes. Henkel customers will have access to the results. This relationship also is expected to enable Henkel to provide its Mexican customers with local failure analysis and evaluation capabilities, as well as support from the Henkel technical team. Henkel will have full access to Monterrey Tech’s advanced SMT assembly line, failure and analysis labs and support from the institutions’ professors and students.
IPC-1750 Series Targets Pb-free Declarations
BANNOCKBURN, Ill. - After more than a year of collaborations, IPC, iNEMI and RosettaNet have drafted a series of supplier declaration standards, IPC-1751, Generic Requirements for Declaration Process Management, which describes generic requirements, including company information; and IPC-1752, Materials Declaration Management, which establishes electronic data formats and provides standardized forms to ease the exchange of materials declaration information. The draft standards and .pdf forms were released on June 10, 2005, for a 60-day industry review. They can be accessed at www.ipc.org/IPC-175X. Once feedback has been reconciled according to the ANSI standards approval process, the standards will be issued.
IPC-1752 outlines a supply-chain materials declaration format and process that helps companies meet environmental regulations. The standard provides a material-content declaration (MCD) form, intended to ease and improve material composition data exchange throughout the supply chain. Because the forms are based on an XML schema, data entered is forced to conform to schema requirements. MCD forms target three levels of declarations using two different forms: a general yes/no RoHS-compliance declaration, a Class-I JIG (Joint Industry Guide) declaration at the part level (IPC-1752-1 form) and a Class-II declaration that includes RoHS and JIG substances at the homogenous-material level, as well as related manufacturing parameters. Forms can be transferred through e-mail or Web interfaces, as well as other secure electronic methods. Contact Dieter Bergman, IPC’s director of technology transfer at DieterBergman@ipc.org; or Fern Abrams, IPC’s director of environmental policy, at FAbrams@ipc.org for further information on the IPC-1750 series.
Newsmakers
Al Cabral has joined the product management and applications team of Shirely, Mass.-based VJ Electronix. Cabral will develop new applications and products, reporting directly to Don Naugler, general manager.
Indium Corporation of Clinton, N.Y., promoted Brian Craig to managing director: European operations. Craig will be located at the company’s Milton Keyes, UK facility, and will be responsible for the general management of operations and activities throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
OK International, Menlo Park, Calif., welcomed Paul Brackell as global product manager for conduction soldering and array package rework. Brackell started a global program to support users of conduction and convection soldering rework equipment in the move to lead-free, and will head a team of four.
Alec Babiarz of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Asymtek, was elected one of four new members to the IPC Surface Mount Equipment Manufacturers Association (SMEMA) Steering Council Committee. The committee sets the agenda for the IPC SMEMA Council and creates initiatives to improve supply-chain efficiencies. Other new members include: Robert Muller, Teradyne Assembly Test Division; Marc Peo, Heller Industries; and Jay Stapleton, Agilent Technologies, Manufacturing Test Business Unit.
CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions, of Elkhart, Ind., has selected Horsham, Pa.-based Aegis Industrial Software Corporation’s NPI, MES, Analytical and CAMX Data Acquisition systems to meet traceability requirements of the medical device manufacturing market. CTS Electronics Manufacturing Solutions plans to deliver traceability of its product component information, process materials, machine measurements and events, as well as test and SPC metrics.
Providing sales, training and technical support to its Southeast Asia customer base, San Clemente, Calif.-based YESTech will open an office in Ubi Tech Park, Singapore. The office will provide training and sales for its YTV series of AOI systems and its YTX series of X-ray inspection systems.