Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008 - (Page 12)

AROUND thE world TOxIC LEGACy in BRIEF Nanonets for Flexible Displays. Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have successfully created networks of carbon nanotubes that can be used to create print circuits on plastic sheets for applications including flexible displays. Nanonets are produced at low temperatures so the circuitry can be placed on flexible plastic sheets, reducing base material costs. The researchers created a flexible circuit containing more than 100 transistors, the largest nanonet ever produced and the first demonstration of a working nanonet circuit. China’s Domestic Chip Market Booms. Although China’s semiconductor purchasing boom is cooling down, the nation’s demand for locally designed chips is heating up, with domestic consumption expected to rise by more than 60% from 2007 to 2012, according to iSuppli Corp. By 2012, $42.1 billion worth of Chinese-designed semiconductors will be purchased for use in electronic equipment made in the nation, up 63.4% from 2007 says , the research firm. DDiVirginia Receives AS9100 Certification. DDi Corporation has received the AS9100:200401 certification for its Virginia facility. This internationally recognized aerospace industry standard for quality assurance in design, development, production, installation and service is an extension of ISo 9001. In 2007 , DDi received the AS9100 certification for its Anaheim and Milpitas, CA and ohio facilities. PCB Reverse Engineering Firm Opens in UK. Armistead Technologies, LLC, a reverse engineering firm that specializes in reverse engineering printed circuit boards, is opening an office in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Armistead Technologies works with manufacturers and oEM companies to recover old PCB designs and update them, integrating new functions and bringing them into compliance with modern standards for safety, environmental protection and energy efficiency. Handset Sales Up 15% in Q2. Second quarter cellphone shipments rose 15% year-over-year to 297 million, a new report claims. Research firm Strategy Analytics forecast third-quarter sales of 321 million units as demand in emerging markets overcomes seasonality in Asia and a slowdown in Western Europe and North America. Nokia had a record global market share of 41%, on 122 million phones sold. Samsung Electronics sold 46 million units (15%) share, up 22% annually. Motorola sold 28.1 million units, down 21%. LG Electronics was fourth at 28 million units. Sony Ericsson’s shipments fell 500,000 to 24.4 million units. Apple, fresh off the newly released 3G iPhone, shipped 700,000 units, down from 1.7 million sequentially. EPA Plans NY Superfund Site Cleanup NEW YORK – The EPA has proposed a plan to continue the clean up of VOC contamination at the Computer Circuits Superfund site in Hauppauge, New York. The Computer Circuits Corporation operated from this site from 1969 to 1977. Waste liquids from the circuit board manufacturing process were discharged to five industrial leaching pools. These waste liquids contained metals, acids, and solvents. Photographic chemicals and waste liquids were segregated and discharged into a separate industrial leaching pool. “The EPA has been working on this site for some time now and we are seeing to it that this cleanup is solidly under way,” Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg said. “We feel that this proposed plan will further advance the work that EPA has been doing.” The plan includes soil vacuum extraction (SVE) that extracts volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from soil near the north side of a one-story building on the property, as well as from underneath the foundation of the building. Furthermore, an additional SVE system is being installed to clean up a second area off the southeast corner of the building, which was also found to have residual VOC contamination. The EPA is also recommending long-term ground water monitoring through an existing network of monitoring wells. Soil and ground water monitoring in 1989 and again in the 1990’s disclosed metals including lead, silver, copper, nickel and zinc in the soil samples, and certain VOCs, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethene were detected in the ground water samples. report: Major pWB production in hands of Few MONTREAL – HannStar and Gold Circuit Electronics dominate the global laptop PCB market, taking a 75% share, while the rest is divvied among Unimicron, Compeq and Unitech. Moreover, the threshold for entry is very high, which keeps new players on the sidelines. So says a new report on global PCB production, released by Electronics.ca. Among the findings: ■ HDI laptops currently make up 10% of laptop shipments and HDI designs won’t be introduced completely to the laptop market due to cost, Electronics. ca contents. ■ The global leading memory PCB board manufacturers are Simmtech and Tripod, which combined own more than an 80% share. The barrier for entry for memory boards is also high. Gross profit margins are very low, at most about 10%, and profit will be a single digit, given deduction of related operating expenses. Only large-scale production of memory boards can be profitable, especially considering equipment depreciation. ■ The entry threshold for auto electronics PCBs is even higher. Major players include Viasystems Group, CMK, Meiko, Jinghua and Unitech. The market has maintained its layout for many years. ■ In 2007, China’s mobile phone output exceeded 600 million units, 90% of which used HDI. Calculating that one sq. meter of HDI board is the production equivalent of 180 units of mobile phones, China’s demand for HDI board for cellphones is 3 million sq. meters. Yet its HDI production capacity cannot meet the market demand, although some manufacturers have expanded capacity. Major players include Multek, Compeq Manufacturing Co., United Powerm (Unimicron), AT&S, Ibiden, Shanghai Meadville, Shantou Goworld, Huafeng Weixian, Meiko and Shanghai Unitech Electronics. SEPTEMBER 2008 12 printEd CirCuit dESign & fAB http://Electronics.ca

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - August 2008 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI Positive Plating Off the Shelf Marketplace Ad Index EMC for the Real World Final Finish Forum Design for Green: Laminates A Systematic Approach to Increasing Layer Count The NTI $100 Million Club Printable Nanocomposites BGA Bulletin

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.