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EPTE Newsletter from Japan - INTERNEPCON 2007

Topics of the Week

INTERNEPCON 2007

The 36th InterNepcon, Japan's largest exhibition for technology and equipment related to electronics manufacturing was held at Tokyo Big Sight from January 17th through January 19th.    The same venue simultaneously hosted related exhibitions that included 24th Electrotest Japan, 8th IC Packaging Technology Expo, 8th Printed Wiring Boards Expo, 8th International Components Trade Show and Laser Optics 2007.  The show has expanded over the last several years, and over 950 companies and organizations spread their booths over a two floors.  The floor plan was cramped, and most companies had to make compromises with their limited booth space since there was no alternative; some major companies could not rent booth space this year.  Floor space was at a premium, and there was no extra space available to use for meeting corners or demonstrations.  Reed Exhibition, the show's owner, stated one more floor would be added next year to provide enough spaces for all the companies.

This show evolved into the world largest exhibition for electronics packaging and wiring.  Nowadays, Japan is not the predominant figure in the electronics industry from a manufacturing standpoint; however, Japanese companies are the leaders in technologies, and the exhibition still attracts engineers from around the world.  The show had several special zones for Soldering, Mounting machines, Factory Facility & Equipment, Image processing, Subcontracting, EMS/ODM, Plating/Etching, EMC-Noise reduction, Connectors, High frequency components/devices and High precision/Fine processing technology.  Each zone included dozens of leading companies for each specialty.  The show is best place to compile the latest information for technologies and business.  I could find multiple sources for high end technologies.

Three days are not enough to see all of the exhibitions.  I estimate more than one hundred thousand people visited the show during the three day exhibition. The narrow aisles and limited booth spaces were jammed with aggressive engineers pitching their products.  The more popular booths were crowded with visitors.  The exhibition time was extended to 6:00 p.m., but the crowds still did not subside by closing time.

On a personal note, I began having back trouble one day before the show, and walked slowly with a painful back during the three days.  Since I visited only half the show, I am not in position to review the whole exhibition this year. However, upcoming newsletters will include some interesting new technologies and products I discovered during the exhibition. Stay tuned.

Dominique Numakura, DKN Research (dnumakura@dknresearch.com)

Headlines of the week

1.      IDEC (Device manufacturer in Japan) 1/6

Has commercialized a thin panel switch (3.2mm thick) for the control panels of the industrial equipment.

2.      Major disc drive manufacturers 1/6

Hitachi GST, SamSung Electronics, Seagate, Toshiba and Fujitsu have organized "Hybrid Storage Alliance" to expand the applications of the hybrid disc drive systems for notebook personal computers.

3.      Toshiba (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/6

Will commercialize the SDHC memory card (4 GB), mini SDHC memory card (4 GB) and micro SD memory card (2 GB) for portable electronics.

4.      Hitachi (Major disc drive manufacturer) 1/6

Will commercialize the world first one tera bites 3.5" disc drive "Deskstar 7K1000" in the first quarter. The retail price will be $399.

5.      Sony (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/7

Has developed a large size organic EL display panel (20") for the flat panel TV.

6.      Toshiba (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/7

Has developed the world first hybrid memory system of hard disc drive and DVD for the desktop PC applications.

7.      Sharp (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/8

Plans to expand the business with 40" to 50" size LCD TV instead of PDP TV utilizing the capabilities of new Kameyama Plant.

8.      Sharp (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/8

Has unveiled the world largest 108" LCD HDTV utilizing the capabilities of new Kameyama Plant. It is larger than the largest PDP TV (103").

Interesting literatures about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

1. New "2006 Global Material Projection for Flex Circuit" DKN Research, October, 2006. http://www.dknresearch.com/Products.html

2. "Introduction for the Printed Circuit Boards of Car Electronics, Flexible Circuits", (Japanese only), Dominique Numakura, Nikkan Kogyo Shinbun, June, 2006, 2400 yens.

3. New "The latest semiconductor package, Part XXI, Teardown Analysis of Notebook PC", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, December, 2006 

4. "Five Year Projection of the Global Flexible Circuit Market" Robert Turunen, Dominique Numakura and James J. Hickman, The Board Authority, Volume 7, August, 2006

5. "Technical Trends and Market Projection of the Materials for the Flexible Circuits", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2006

6. "Leading Edge Material and Application of Polyimide (Materials for the Advance Flexible Circuits)", Dominique Numakura, CMC publication, August, 2006

7. New "Business Trends and Technology Trends of the HDI Flexible Circuits -

Roadmap for the Ultra High-Density Advanced Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, KPCA, October 31, 2006

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "Reducing Open and Short", Michael Barbetta, CircuiTree, December, 2006.

2. "Finding hidden Placement Problems - Recalibrating equipment improves placement yields", Kary Voegele, Circuits Assembly, December, 2006.

3. "A New Approach to Vapor Phase Reflow Soldering", John Bashe, SMT, November, 2006

4. "Laminate Material Selection for RoHS ASSEMBLY, Part 2", Ed Kelley and Erik Bergum, Printed Circuit Design & Manufacturing, December, 2006.

5. "Innovations in Computer Tomography, 3-D X-ray Inspection has Arrived", David Bernard, Advanced Packaging, November/December, 2006

6. "From Chips to Systems via Packaging - A Comparison of IBM's Mainframe Servers", Hubert Harrer, George A. Katopis and Wiren Becker, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, 4th Quarter, 2006