Circuits Assembly - August 2008 - (Page 8)

NEWS In Brief Solder supplier Cobar Europe (cobar. com), a member of the Balver Zinn Group, named WKK Distribution (wkk.com.hk) to sell its products in China, India and Southeast Asia. Molex Inc. (molex.com) completed a previously announced acquisition of AFlextech Inc. (aflextech.com.tw). No financial terms were disclosed. AFlextech has sales of $25 million and 300 employees. Zestron America (zestron.com) has taken delivery of a Gen3 Systems (gen3systems.com) CM-60 Contaminometer. Kester (kester.com) named Cluff & Associates (cluffin.com) as representative in Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and southern Idaho. Fine Line Stencil (finelinestencil.com) purchased an LPKF (lpkf.com) stencil AOI. Indium Corp. (indium.com) named Powell Industries its sales channel partner in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California. Jabil Circuit (jabil.com) has begun pilot production of Location Based Technologies’ (locationbasedtech.com) PocketFinder location devices in Le Mans, France. Zollner (zollner.de) purchased an Agilent Technologies (agilent.com) Medalist x6000 automated x-ray inspection system. Austin American Technology (aatcorp.com) and Zestron America (zestron. com) have completed compatibility experiments for cleaning equipment and products. The testing was conducted with current PCB defluxing inline and batch equipment, as well as stencil cleaning machines. Completed at various concentrations and temperatures, the results confirmed excellent compatibility between all wetted parts that came in direct contact with Vigon and Atron cleaning agents, the companies say. Industry Edited by Mike Buetow Dynasil Acquires RMD in $20M Deal WEST BERLIN, NJ – Dynasil Corp. of America (dynasil.com) has acquired Radiation Monitoring Devices Inc. and specific assets of RMD Instruments LLC (rmdinc.com) for $20 million, including $12.5 million cash and 4.6 million shares of common stock. RMD owners Dr. Gerald Entine and Jack Paster will remain with the company. Dynasil had sales of $11 million last year, while RMD generated more than $20 million in revenues. The company is financing the acquisition via a $9 million bank term loan and a $5 million stock offering. In a statement, Dynasil chairman James Saltzman said, “Adding RMD is a transformational event. We expect that it will more than triple our revenues and profits, while our shares outstanding only approximately double, which should make it immediately accretive. It also brings us some exciting products, as well as extensive technological capability that we expect will drive our future growth.” Dynasil manufactures photonic products such as optical materials, components, coatings and specialized instruments. RMD makes a range of XRF and other equipment for various applications, including electronics, chemicals and medical. – Mike Buetow Right Recipe Can Cut Pb-Free PCB Costs ROMULUS, MI – The right combination of materials, finishes and solders can have a marked effect on bare board cost and reliability. Indeed, according to Jim Kelch, director of sales/marketing, at PWB fabricator Saturn Electronics Corp. (saturnelectronics.com), the right recipe can cut board costs as much as 30%. In a late June Webinar, Kelch, along with representatives from Isola Group (isola-group.com) and Florida CirTech (floridacirtech.com), laid out how. The move to Pb-free creates a host of indirect cost drivers, said Kelch, including increased scrap rate (due to delamination and decreased solderability) and the need for additional storage and handling steps (generally, pre-baking). The response, according to Kelch, is designers are calling out FR-4 laminates with 180° Tg and 340° Td (time to decomposition at temperature). But while FR-4 is RoHS compliant, it is not always right for Pb-free assembly, he explained, while 180° Tg does not guarantee adequate Td. Saturn’s proposed solution: mid-grade Pb-free capable laminates that meet IPC-4101/99 (filled) or IPC4101/124 (unfilled), with a minimum 150° Tg and 325° Td. The benefits, he says, are a 15 to 20% cost savings on raw materials; lower moisture absorption (0.10 to 0.25%); higher interlaminate adhesion (peel strength = T-288 >10 min.), and high copper-to-laminate peel strength. Dave Coppens, technical account manager at laminate supplier Isola, discussed test results for the company’s IS400 product, which reportedly performed well under tests for TGA, DSC, Td, weight loss % by TGA, peel strength and 6X reflow. Next, Glenn Sikorcin, sales manager at Florida CirTech, a North American licensee for Nihon Superior’s SN100CL, an all-tin solder alloy, shared results of Pb-free HASL and HALT tests. Pb-free HASL required the most energy (G-force and thermal cycling) to break solder joints, and outperformed SnPb HASL in the tests, according to Sikorcin. He noted Pb-free HASL (also called HAL) has certain drawbacks, including a non-planar finish, and it’s not ideal for extremely fine-pitch applications; there are post-solderability issues, and SN100CL requires a thermal cycle in addition to thermal cycle in assembly. Finally, no industry standards exist for Pb-free HASL. Based on Isola and Florida CirTech’s studies, Kelch said, “By implementing one or both solutions, you save up to 30% of bare board cost; increase product performance; standardize fab notes to remove risk of nonperforming products, and improve your supply base.” – Chelsey Drysdale St. Pete OK’s Package to Keep Jabil ST. PETERSBURG, FL – St. Petersburg officials have approved almost $35 million worth of tax incentives to keep Jabil Circuit headquartered here, a local paper reported on July 3. Under terms of the deal, the state of Florida would pay $20 million, the city $12.7 million and Pinellas county $1.7 million in a combination of grants, tax refunds and infrastructure upgrades, the St. Petersburg Times reported. For its part, Jabil (jabil.com) must hire 858 new workers at an average annual salary of $42,685 a year, and build a new $49 million campus. 8 Circuits Assembly AUGUST 2008 circuitsassembly.com http://dynasil.com http://www.cobar.com http://rmdinc.com http://www.cobar.com http://wkk.com.hk http://molex.com http://aflextech.com.tw http://zestron.com http://gen3systems.com http://gen3systems.com http://kester.com http://cluffin.com http://saturnelectronics.com http://isola-group.com http://floridacirtech.com http://finelinestencil.com http://lpkf.com http://indium.com http://jabil.com http://locationbasedtech.com http://zollner.de http://agilent.com http://aatcorp.com http://aatcorp.com http://zestron.com http://zestron.com http://jabil.com http://circuitsassembly.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Circuits Assembly - August 2008

Circuits Assembly - August 2008 Contents Caveat Lector Industry News Market Watch Talking Heads Screen Printing Better Manufacturing Auditing a Fabricatior Cutting Machine Programming Time Simultaneous Acoustic Imaging and Surface Mapping Tech Tips Soldering Test and Inspection Process Doctor Pb-Free Lessons Learned Getting Lean Component Advances Product Spotlight Ad Index Assembly Insider Techincal Abstracts

Circuits Assembly - August 2008

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