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Speaking of this Week — August 13, 2004
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
By Christine F. Della Monaca, Managing Editor, SMT
Speaking of this Week summarizes and analyzes events in the electronics assembly industry every Friday.
Progress news, especially having to do with the industry hot topic right now, lead-free, was in wide abundance this week. We've also got news on trade shows to come as we look toward the busy fall show season. And just for good measure, quarterly financial news, partnerships, legislative news and a look at the components market are thrown in as well.
- In probably the biggest bit of lead-free progress news of the week, Midland, Mich.-based Dow Corning Corp. announced that its is ready for compliance with the EU laws regarding lead-free. To complete this task, Dow Corning tracked development of the legislation, educated raw materials suppliers, and implemented the necessary product line adjustments. (By the way, WEEE and RoHS becomes law for EU member states today. Manufacturers have until July 1, 2006 to ensure banned substances aren't present in new equipment.) In the meantime, Utica, N.Y.-based Indium Corp. of America is launching its Pb-free Readiness Assessment, designed by SMT Editorial Advisory Board member and Indium Senior Technologist Ron Lasky, Ph.D. And Northbrook, Ill.-based IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries launched a new Web site for lead-free information and trends. In other progress news, Singapore-based Advanced Interconnect Technologies (AIT) received the "Supplier of the Year" and "Customer Service" awards for 2003 from Fremont, Calif.-based Exar Corp.; Redmond, Wash.-based Prototron Circuits received ISO 9001:2000 certification; and Albuquerque-based Introbotics Corp. received a patent for a test method and way to test PWBs, as well as a second product award to Merix Corp.
- In trade show news, this week we had a great contributed piece on wafer-level processing, which will be addressed at the next MEPTEC one-day technical symposium next week in Santa Clara, Calif. The Minneapolis-based SMTA announced that it will hold its Academy Program and SMT Process Certification in conjunction with NEPCON Texas, which will return to the Lone Star State in mid-October, and also announced a new full-day SMTA workshop dealing with implementing lead-free, presented by Ron Lasky. The lead-free workshops will take place in early November in Tampa, Fla., and in early December in St. Paul, Minn. IPC announced its technical conference and professional development courses for IPCWorks 2004, which will be held in late October in Minneapolis. Finally, a hub for wireless communications will premiere at electronica 2004, held in early November in Munich, Germany.
- In financial news, Lake Forest, Calif.-based Valor Computerized Systems, Yavne, Israel-based Orbotech Ltd., Phoenix-based Duraswitch and Plainview, N.Y.-based Aeroflex Inc. all reported that their financial results for the quarter ended June 30 rose year-over-year. And Lake Success, N.Y.-based Park Electrochemical Corp. appointed a new financial auditor, Grant Thornton LLP.
- In partnership news, Santa Ana, Calif.-based Express Manufacturing Inc. (EMI) formed a partnership with California State University, Los Angeles to host an Executive Training Program for the top-ranking officials in Vietnam's government-owned and operated provider of telecom, postal and IT services. Also, Londonderry, N.H.-based Cobar Solder Products signed Torenko and Associates as a manufacturer's representative in Texas and the Southwest.
- IPC has been busy this week: The association successfully lobbied for more than $1 billion in R&D funding for enabled passives. IPC is the lead industry advocate of the Emerging/Critical Interconnection Technology (E/CIT) program, which is coordinated by the Printed Circuit Technology Branch of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division.
- Finally, the Arlington, Va.-based Electronic Components, Assemblies & Materials Association (ECA) released its monthly order index, showing flattened growth in July.
This just in: According to this week's Quick Vote, 29 percent of you don't have products assembled in China. Among those who do, 25 percent say quality has been poor, 17 percent say fair, 17 percent more say very good, and 13 percent say it is excellent.
Have some insight on the industry? See something you don't agree with? Think I'm right on? Send it all to me at christinef@pennwell.com.