Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

EPTE Newsletter from Japan - Productronica 2007 (Part II)

Productronica 2007 showcased products from both circuit board manufacturers and assembly houses; however, representation from the assembly sector exceeded circuit board manufacturers.  Floor space provided for assembly occupied almost 4 pavilions where mounting and soldering machines as well as other related materials were featured.   More than two thirds of the pavilions had floor space dedicated to assembly and other related technologies.  One pavilion was exclusive to connectors and wire harnesses, and two other pavilions were reserved for testing and inspection equipment. Surface Mount Technology (SMT) equipment manufacturers that included Panasonic and JUKI from Japan, Samsung from Korea and Siemens from Germany had very large booths to display their newest machine models. Some installed an entire PWB assembly line that included solder paste screen-printers, a couple of mounting machines, a solder re-flow furnace and inspection machines. Machine vendors displayed a broad range of their product lines from prototype compact machines to high-speed volume production lines. One mounting machine was capable of managing many kinds of electronic components; however, new generations of portable electronics such as cellular phones need multiple mounting machines within one line. The latest assembly machines are designed as a unit module, therefore assembly companies can easily design smart manufacturing lines. Representatives from machine companies reserved large areas to meet with potential customers.  Some of these meet and greets lasted more than an hour, making it difficult for these potential customers to have more than a half dozen meetings in one day. All of the machine vendors emphasized the high reliability and productivity from the assembling process for the smaller pitch IC packages from 0.5 mm and 0402 chip components (the equivalent component size is 01005 by British units).  Since verification stations and repair equipment were also prevalent during the exhibition, one could speculate that the assembly capabilities from the latest machines are not perfect.   Soldering material suppliers also reserved large booths and displayed both solders with related materials and re-flow equipment. Lead-free soldering is still a hot topic within this industry; however, material vendors did not unveil any more new solder alloys. Vendors displayed some products with minor modifications to existing soldering materials, while material suppliers talked up the reliability of their latest versions of soldering materials.  It seemed that the pavilions where assembly equipment were featured drew more attention from visitors than other pavilions where PWBs or wire harnesses products were on display. Could this mean there are sill many assembly houses in Europe and the printed circuit board industry continues to shrink?  Sources tell me that the assembly business in some Eastern European countries continues chugging along and is still growing.  Unfortunately, European PWB manufacturers are not enjoying the same success. (Continued next week)

Dominique K. Numakura

DKN Research, www.dknresearch.com

Headlines of the week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information of the news.)

1.      Taiyo Kogyo (Prototype flex manufacturer in Japan) 11/19

Will found a new manufacturing site in Kawasaki for a quicker service in the eastern customers in Japan.

2.      Pioneer (Major electronics company in Japan) 11/19

Will commercialize 40" class LCD TV instead of PDP TV during summer season in 2008. Sharp will supply the LCD devices.

3.      Samuko (Device manufacturer in Japan) 11/20

Will have an R&D alliance with MIT in Massachusetts to develop special etching processes for the new manufacturing plant.

4.      Koike (Component supplier in Japan) 11/21

Will start the volume production of quartz devices for DVD driver modules utilizing the thin slicing technology of quartz.

5.      Fuji Sankei (Business newspaper in Japan) 11/19

Vietnam has been increasing software business rapidly utilizing the low cost labors in the country.

6.      Asahi Kasei (Major chemical company in Japan) 11/22

Will invest 10 billion yens to build a new central institute in Fuji-shi, Shizuoka for the next generation material including electronics and medical materials.

7.      Kimoto (Electronic film supplier in Japan) 11/22

Will expand the film business for flat panel display and touch panel applications. Kimoto will install new coating line for the advanced electronics films.

8.      JSR (Major electronics material supplier in Japan) 11/22

Will develop new functional film materials for the solar cell applications combining both organic and inorganic materials.

9.      Nichiyu (Petroleum based materials supplier in Japan) 11/22

Has commercialized several advanced optical film products recently for the flat panel displays.

10.  Sony (Major electronics company in Japan) 11/23

Will commercialize a new high-speed memory card (800 MB/second) with 8 or 16 GB capacities for professional use.

Interesting literature about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

1. New "Screen Printing for High-Density Flexible Electronics", Robert Turunen, Masafumi Nakayama and Dominique Numakura, Printed Circuit FAB, October, 2007, http://pcdandm.com/cms/content/view/3846/95/

2. New "Total Process Solution for the High-Density Multi-layer Flexible Printable Electronic Circuits", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2007

3.New "The latest electronics package, Part XXXI, Cellular Phones", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, October, 2007 

4. New "Coombs' Printed Circuits Handbook, 6th Edition, Part 15-Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, McGraw Hill, New York, September, 2007

5. New "DKN Research Develops Film Base Connector", Circuits Assembly, September, 2007.

6. "Flexible Circuit Materials", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, April, 2007

7. "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. "20 Years of Interconnect Defects", Michael Carano, CircuiTree, November, 2007.

2. "Creating Ideal Solder Joints", Zulki Khan, Circuits Assembly, November, 2007.

3. "Low-cost Optical Interconnects in SMT", Edward Palen, SMT, October, 2007

4. "Metric Pitch BGA and Micro BGA Routing Solutions", Tom Hausherr, Printed Circuit Design & FAB, November, 2007.

5. "Automatic Optical Inspection of IC Connections", Christian FAber, Advanced Packaging, October, 2007

7. "Under the Hood, Efficiency vs. Speed", presented by EE Times and Techonline, October 8, 2007

8. "Tape Substrate Manufacturers Have Been Facing Conversion Phases", (Japanese) The Semiconductor Industry News, September 26th, 2007