Circuits Assembly - November 2007 - (Page 8)

NEWS In Brief Zestron (zestron.com) will install a technical center near Munich. The new site will resemble its recently built center in Virginia. Asymtek (asymtek.com) opened a technical support and sales office in Chennai, India, to support the area’s expanding markets. The new office is colocated with parent company Nordson Corp., and provides onsite equipment service, training and applications assistance. Plexus Corp.’s (plexus.com) Penang, Malaysia, plant has received Food and Drug Administration approval to make medical devices that meet Class III performance standards. The approval brings to three the number of FDA-registered Plexus manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Mexico and Malaysia, two of which are now approved to manufacture Class III medical devices. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals tossed a prior $1.7 million ruling in favor of Sparton Corp. (sparton.com) in its lawsuit against Util-LINK LLC and National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative. The Sixth Circuit also affirmed the lower court’s decision denying NRTC relief on its $20 million counterclaim against Sparton. Dage (dage.com) and YesTech (yestech. com), now both under the Nordson umbrella, will remain separate entities. Both units report to Dage CEO Geraint Rees. RIT has conducted a study on SMT oven energy use. It should be available shortly. Flextronics (flextronics.com) plans to close its plant at Chateaudun, France, according to an Agence France Presse report. Aegis Software Ltd. (aegisoft.com) moved its European headquarters to Buckinghamshire, U.K. The manufacturing information management systems provider’s new site includes a larger training center. “Aegis sees Europe as a very important manufacturing market,” said CEO Jason Spera in a statement. Telecom equipment maker Westell (westell.com) will outsource some manufacturing to Foxconn (foxconn.com). Industry Edited by Mike Buetow Bain, Huawei to Buy 3Com BOSTON – 3Com Corp., once an icon of the high-flying tech industry, is going private. The company agreed to a $2.2 billion buyout by Bain Capital Partners in an all-cash deal announced Sept. 28. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter next year. Under terms of the deal, Huawei Technologies (cnc.huawei.com) will also receive a minority stake, although Bain declined to disclose the terms. The deal is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals; Huawei's inclusion may complicate matters, as the company is China's largest telecom equipment maker. 3Com (3com.com) said Huawei's stake would be made public shortly. 3Com shareholders will receive $5.30 in cash per share, a 44% premium to the stock's Sept. 27 closing price. 3Com has more than 6,000 employees and annual revenue of $1.3 billion. – Mike Buetow Chicago Trade Show Blues SCHAUMBURG, IL – From one came three. But more was less, and after the first few bars of the Chicago trade show musical chairs, many folks were singing the blues. Much will be made of the series of trade shows – IPC Midwest, Assembly Technology Expo and SMTA International – taking place this fall. The former two, which took place the last week of September in the northwest Chicago suburbs, effectively divided the audience that once could be counted on to walk the floor of AT Expo each year. In neither case did the foot traffic live up to hopes or expectations. However, for those who bothered to turn out, there were some nuggets of value. Following the SMEMA Council’s decision to support the IPC show, most equipment suppliers hightailed it there. A handful of exhibitors, Viscom and Sony among them, chose either to stick to the tried and true, or did not want to pay the cancellation fees to bail on ATE. At least three companies – Qualitek, Kyzen and Viscom – chose to exhibit at both. All things considered, the Schaumburg Convention Center was a nice place to host a show. The center is new, clean and – if this New star: Fuji's XPJ-L pick-and-place. matters to you – nonunion (based on the picketers outside the event). Parking is free and close; restaurants are in abundance; and the adjacent hotel (Renaissance) is pristine, although expensive, especially for the Chicago suburbs. Some of the stars of the show – there were a few – included Fuji, which debuted its XPF-L single gantry placement machine, with a 25,000 cph chipshooter (said to have 50-µm accuracy) and a 35-µm accuracy flex placer head, with the capability of placing 01005s up to 45-mm sq. parts. The machine comes with up to 100 feeders (and uses the same feeders as the NXT and AIM models), picks from up to five Jedec style trays, and parts can be added while the machine is in operation. Fuji calls the head changeover Dynamic Head Exchange, and claims it takes less than 1 sec. to automatically perform. The gantry has a lower center of gravity and operates like a cast iron yoke; it is thin and wide to reduce stress and vibration. Fuji (fuji.com) has sold 11 XPF-Ls so far, marketing manager Scott Wischoffer told CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY. BPM Microsystems (bpmmicro.com) showed its Flashstream automated flash programmer, which contains four programming sites and is rated at 1050 devices per hour. It handles parts in tray, tube or tape formats. A second automated system, HelixFS, is rated at 800 devices per hour, and is flexible enough to switch between dedicated flash and universal sites, based on production needs. Very slick. KIC’s (kicthermal.com) new Explorer thermal profiler was as good as advertised: a compact (7" long) design, high-temperature rated components, minimum of 12 thermocouples. The device also has an improved sampling rate and greater memory capacity, and connects to PCs via a USB port. But perhaps the real value is in the software: a neat GUI and the capability to measure slope, peak temperature and time above liquidous, and the Process Window Index, which, as KIC’s new North American sales manager Brian O‘Leary describes it, mathematically identifies a profile’s "fit" to the available process window and whose algorithm distills the process to a whole number to indicate an in-spec condition. It also reveals where the process or oven needs adjustment. As the Explorer takes hold, the Slim KIC will be discontinued. 8 Circuits Assembly NOVEMBER 2007 circuitsassembly.com http://zestron.com http://cnc.huawei.com http://asymtek.com http://3com.com http://plexus.com http://sparton.com http://dage.com http://yestech.com http://yestech.com http://flextronics.com http://fuji.com http://bpmmicro.com http://aegisoft.com http://kicthermal.com http://westell.com http://westell.com http://foxconn.com http://circuitsassembly.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Circuits Assembly - November 2007

Circuits Assembly - November 2007 Contents Caveat Lector Industry News Market Watch Talking Heads Focus on Business Global Sourcing On the Forefront Screen Printing Better Manufacturing Pb-Free Manufacturing from a Tier III EMS Perspective ‘Living Documents, Subject to Change’ Creating Ideal Solder Joints An Alternative Drying Process for MSDs ‘Customer Satisfaction is More than a Score’ Optoelectronic Substrates: Will They Happen? Tech Tips Wave Soldering Process Doctor Test and Inspection Getting Lean Materials World Equipment Advances Product Spotlight Assembly Insider Technical Abstracts Ad Index

Circuits Assembly - November 2007

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