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Speaking of this Week — August 6, 2004
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
By Christine F. Della Monaca, Managing Editor, SMT
Speaking of this Week summarizes and analyzes events in the electronics assembly industry every Friday.
Partnership, merger and acquisition news came to the forefront again this week. Lots of progress news in a variety of categories, financial news of all stripes, as well as trade show and personnel news appeared as well.
- In partnership news, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada-based ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. has received a total of US $10 million in orders from a large manufacturer of self-use medical diagnostic systems. This brings the total value of orders for automation systems this customer has racked up in the last year to US $21 million. The market for self-diagnostic systems is expected to rise 10 to 15 percent on a compound annual basis over the next five years, to approximately $5 billion. I'm sure other electronics assembly companies doing business in medical markets will be there to serve this growing market as well. In the meantime, the San Antonio, Texas-based Entrada Group has two new clients in MC Assembly and Tricon Industries. Both companies will receive integrated outsourcing services from Entrada to assist in the transition, startup and management of new operations in Mexico. And Flemington, N.J.-based DEK has given its first VectorGuard stencil technology license to Munich, Germany-based Christian Koenen GmbH. Meanwhile, Tokyo-based Fujitsu Ltd. and Cadence Design Systems, Japan announced a global partnership agreement this week to create advanced system-on-chip (SoC) environments. Finally, Milpitas, Calif.-based Solectron Corp. reached a definitive agreement to sell its Microtechnology business to Francisco Partners of California, and completed the previously announced sale of its Force Computers embedded computing systems business to Motorola Inc. Both divestitures are part of the company's previously announced plan to sell certain assets not central to its future strategy. And Utica, N.Y.-based Indium Corp. of America is now represented in Central New York by Progressive Technologies.
- Speaking of Indium, the company released the results of a series of cleaning solvent compatibility evaluations — for more information, e-mail the company directly. On a jealousy-inducing note, Beaverton, Ore.-based Vanguard EMS now offers full lead-free manufacturing capability, including SMT, wave soldering, manual assembly and rework. Concord, Calif.-based March Plasma Systems is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and Bristol, R.I.-based PR firm MMC Inc. launched a new communications service, STRATEGIUS. Finally, Greensboro, N.C.-based RF Micro Devices Inc. says it is the first wireless semiconductor company to ship 1 billion power amps for cell phones.
- In financial news, Montreal-based Coreco Inc. announced that revenues for its second quarter ended June 30 increased 27 percent to US $6.2 million and 17 percent on a sequential basis. Another Canada-based company, Vancouver-based Nam Tai Electronics Inc. had similarly sunny news in that its second quarter, also ended June 30, saw sales increase by 26.5 percent on a sequential basis. In EMS financial news, Singapore-based Flextronics will make an equity investment in Sunnyvale, Calif.-based frog design inc., and Solectron will remarket up to $64 million aggregated principal amount of its 7.25 percent subordinated debentures, due 2006. Finally, West Chicago, Ill.-based M-Wave Inc. sold 30,000 shares of its Series A convertible preferred stock to Mercator Momentum Fund LP, Mercator Momentum Fund III LP and Monarch Pointe Ltd.
- Experts in semiconductor packaging, including representatives from Amkor Technology, Intel, LSI Logic, Sun Microsystems, TechSearch International, Asymtek and Henkel Technologies converged at the Marriott in San Jose, Calif. during SEMICON West last month to present a standing room-only seminar on future trends in packaging. Looking ahead, Willow Grove, Pa.-based Tyco Electronics' David Wang will present a lead-free seminar at NEPCON Shanghai in early September.
- Finally, in personnel news, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Honeywell has a new director of IT for its Electronics Materials business in Theo Gibson, and Redmond, Wash.-based Prototron Circuits hired David Izett as sales engineer.
This just in: According to this week's Quick Vote, 36 percent of you think Moore's Law is over. (This refers to an observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits doubles every year since the integrated circuit was invented.) Twenty-seven percent of you think it's still in effect, 27 percent more think it still has some applicability but is starting to lose ground, and 9 percent of you are not sure.
Have some insight on the industry? See something you don't agree with? Think I'm right on? Send it all to me at christinef@pennwell.com.