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Speaking of this Week — July 30, 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.
What a week! IPC released its new book-to-bill format for June's numbers, which splits rigid and flexible PCBs into two segments. High-profile progress news came to light, as did personnel news, financial results, partnerships and acquisitions, a trade show tidbit, and a look at the worldwide handheld device market.
- First, Northbrook, Ill.-based IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries' Book-to-Bill ratio for June. As mentioned above, IPC has decided to report stats on rigid and flexible circuit segments separately, and then average the two numbers to create the overall book-to-bill. For June, this number fell to 1.06. While it's still positive and hasn't dipped below 1.00 in more than a year, the ratio reflects a downhill trend that began in February. Hopefully it's just the doldrums of the summer and we'll see more growth in the fall. In the meantime, for flexible circuits and rigid PCBs combined, industry sales billed, or shipments, rose 31.3 percent year-over-year, and orders booked increased 13 percent from last June. Breaking it out further, rigid PCB shipments are up 28.4 percent and flexible circuit shipments are up 76.9 percent year-over-year, and bookings for rigid PCBs increased 16.3 percent, while those for flexible circuits are down 14.9 percent. This new data will provide more detailed information over time about two segments of the PCB industry that seem to have different growth patterns.
- In progress news, the Minneapolis-based SMTA announced the 2004 Charles Hutchins Educational Grant winner, Brian McAdams of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. McAdams will receive $5,000 and travel expenses to SMTA International, where he will be presented with the award during SMTA's Annual Meeting. Meanwhile, City of Industry, Calif.-based Henkel Technologies unveiled a new initiative to market all its products under one banner as a new corporate identity. UK-based Soldertec Global announced that, with less than two years to go until the RoHS Directive becomes a reality, the organization is offering regional guidance to recommend timelines for European components manufacturers and electronic assemblers to develop products that will comply with the pending legislation. Allentown, Pa.-based FlexLink launched a new program, the "30/30 Challenge," where the company will give a 30-minute presentation that will help manufacturers increase efficiency by 30 percent or more. Finally, Wake Forest, N.C.-based SMT Resource Group LLC has updated its Web site.
- In big-shot personnel news, Frankfurt, Germany-based Siemens AG will appoint Klaus Kleinfeld, former head of Siemens Corp. in New York, as CEO in late January. Washington, D.C.-based IMAPS has a new executive director in Michael O'Donoghue as of September 1. Finally, Breda, Holland-based Cobar Europe appointed Han Raetsen as customer support manager.
- Good news: Companies from such diverse parts of the industry as Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based AVX Corp., Herzlia, Israel-based Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd., Wilsonville, Ore.-based Mentor Graphics Corp., and San Jose, Calif.-based Sanmina-SCI Corp. all reported improved results for their quarters that ended around the end of June. Boston-based Teradyne did not provide comparable figures for its second quarter results, but its sales were $526.5 million and net income was $80.5 million.
- In companies coming together news, Houston-based BP Microsystems appointed Beijing Yake Electronics Co. as its new distributor for North and Northwest China. Kenosha, Wis.-based Pro-mation Inc. secured an automation contract with San Francisco-based EoPlex Technologies, and Safety Harbor, Fla.-based OnScreen Technologies Inc. completed its Phase II Design with Milpitas, Calif.-based Solectron Corp. for its LED video displays. Finally, in acquisition news, Melville, N.Y.-based Arrow Electronics Inc. completed its acquisition of Disway AG.
- In trade show news, the organizers of electronicAsia, taking place in mid-October in Hong Kong, are confident that all booth space will be sold.
- Finally, a look at an end-use electronics market: Framingham, Mass.-based IDC says that the worldwide market for handheld devices experienced a slight sequential gain in the second quarter of 2004, but did not post a year-over-year increase, despite strong shipments from top five vendors.
This just in: According to this week's Quick Vote, 44 percent of you are using materials declarations to help comply with upcoming lead-free legislation, 50 percent are not, and 6 percent are not sure. I suspect we will see more of this with time.
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.