APEX NEWS 2007

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

February Book-to-Bill

The combined rigid and flex PCB industry book-to-bill for North America grew in February, climbing back toward parity with 0.99, according to IPC. The book-to-bill is holding steady against 2007 numbers, according to interpretation of the initial data for 2008.

• Shipments for rigid PCBs slid 0.7% from February 2007; but bookings shot up 15.6%. Year to date, rigid PCB shipments are up 2.3% and bookings are up 14.7%. Compared to January, rigid PCB shipments increased 1.7% and rigid bookings increased 20.6%. The rigid circuits book-to-bill climbed to 0.99.
• Flexible circuits shipments climbed 5.9% and bookings are up 12.4% compared to February 2007. Year to date, flexible circuit shipments are down 6.2% and bookings dropped 5.1%. Compared to the previous month, flexible circuit shipments are up 25.3%; bookings rose 27.7%. The book-to-bill held at 0.96.
• Combined, the flex and rigid PCB market shipments decreased just 0.3% from February 2007, and orders booked increased 15.4% over the same period. Year to date, combined industry shipments are up 1.8% and bookings are up 13.3%. Compared to the previous month, combined industry shipments for February 2008 are up 3.0% and bookings grew 21.0%. The combined book-to-bill ratio moved up to 0.99.

Best of the Show

Exhibits (442 booths), attendance numbers (9,276 visitors), and quality interaction (92% of visitors will recommend attending in 2009) are important, but the intangible role of a tradeshow is how it interacts with the audience, through location, atmosphere, and energy.

• Most popular booth give-away: No surprise here, given the frantic pace of APEX – the winner is coffee. Lattes, cappuccinos, and regular cups of joe were relished by attendees.
• Best activity outside of the show: After an informal poll, the winner was the rollercoaster at New York, New York casino. Close second was the natural scene, with many people coming in a day early for hiking, bike riding, and desert activities.
• Best booth gag: BEST Inc. takes the prize for dressing a spokesperson in a human-sized costume of their latest product. The EZReball costume was easier to make than a foam costume of a benchtop rework system, joked Bob Wetterman, CIT, president of BEST.
• Longest title of a technical paper: We had many nominees from APEX on this one, but the true winner (we measured by length, not word count) is “Comparison of Copper Erosion at Plated Through Hole Knees in Motherboards of Two Thicknesses Using SAC305 and Alternative Alloys for Waving and Mini-Pot Rework,” by Alan Donaldson, Intel Corporation. A close runner-up: “Novel CCL Based on New Fluoropolymer Exhibits Extremely Low Loss Characteristics and New Evaluation Method for Separating Dielectric and Conductive Losses,” by Kazuhiko Niwano, Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.
• Brightest booth wear: Agilent takes the prize for their racing-themed yellow shirts with black-and-white checkering. Despite the ample square footage of the exhibit hall, Agilent’s people were always easy to find.
• Best of conference papers: As determined by the IPC’s balloted voting, “Design for Manufacturability in Lead-free Wave Solder Process,” Ramon Mendez, process development engineer, Celestica, took International Best Paper; Brandon Gore, signal integrity engineer, Intel Corporation’s Packaging and Interconnects Group, won the U.S. Best Paper award for “Toward a PCB Production Floor Metric for Go/No-Go Testing of Lossy High Speed Transmission Lines.”
• Best spot: This award could go to the Las Vegas location, which seemed to inject energy and excitement into the show. It also could go to the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s exhibit hall, which offered fresh food, plenty of space, a business center, Internet connections, and staff to help you register or find a technical session. However, the Food Court at the exhibit hall took top billing, as lunch meetings were conducted standing up, and bidding wars erupted each time a table opened up.

• < Previous Page