Electronic manufacturing services & related assembly activity
Acu-Rite (Jamestown, NY) completed the first stage of its $5 million
expansion and factory renovation which included dividing its open
manufacturing area into separate, enclosed sections for PCBA,
electronic assembly and ‘clean’ assembly.
Adeptron completed $6 million in equity financing with R.H. Global Technologies.
API Alliance received an assembly contract for data destruction devices from Proton Data Security.
Bantam Electronics received a manufacturing contract from JBM Electronics for compact wireless routers.
Benchmark Electronics rented 10,000 sq.m. at Brasov Industrial park in Romania.
Celestica entered into a manufacturing contract with EMC in Brazil for networked storage systems.
Compal:
• asked notebook OEMs for price increases.
• will close its plant in Manchester, UK.
• is setting up plants in Poland and Brazil to reduce its excessive focus in China.
Connectronics Romania, a subsidiary of the Connect Systems group, Belgium, opened a 16,000 sq.m. factory in Oradea, Romania.
Continental invested approximately EUR 24 million in its Budapest,
Hungary, plant in 2007 and intends to increase this amount in 2008.
CT Production purchased a three-head APP 654 conformal coating machine.
CTS Corporation authorized the repurchase of up to one million of its outstanding shares of common stock.
Dell expects to have 2,500 workers at its computer assembly plant in Lodz, Poland, by year end 2008.
EB (Elektrobit) cut 59 jobs at its plants in Oulunsalo, Oulu and Kajaani, Finland.
Elcoteq transferred its mobile phone production in Estonia to
Hungary and reduced the number of employees at two plants in Estonia
from 3500 to 2000 to control labor costs.
EN ElectronicNetwork’s co-founder Rüdiger Hornhardt retired from executive board and GM position.
Flex Circuits added LED placement equipment from Essemtec.
Flextronics:
• CEO Mike McNamara expects the company to add about $3 billion of business from organic growth opportunities.
• named Paul Read CFO after Thomas Smach resigned.
• acquired CEAG’s FRIWO mobile power business unit.
• sold its Multi Vendor Division of ServiceSource Europe to former
management members George Buchan, Mark Hesketh and James Bruce.
• had rejected by Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service its plans to
produce LCD televisions for the Russian market at Elcoteq’s former St.
Petersburg plant.
• former VP Claes Winzell was appointed president and CEO of EIS by Semcon.
Foxconn/Hon Hai:
• donated RMB60 million to Sichuan, China, earthquake victims.
• received ‘Investor of the Year 2007’ award in the Czech Republic.
• is building a 32,000 sq.m. assembly facility for HP PCs in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• is setting up a cell phone plant in Broward County, Florida.
• is building a R&D center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, scheduled to have 3,000 workers.
• launched its first Green Series motherboards.
• is establishing Hong Hai University, an EMBA school for the company’s future executives and successor to Terry Gou.
• is entering the contract notebook PC business in 2009.
• was ranked No. 5 Among ‘Top 1000’ firms in China, HK & Taiwan in 2007 by CommonWealth.
Fujitsu Telecommunications is moving its PCB manufacturing from Birmingham, UK, to Texas by September 2008.
Global Innovation selected Cimnet Systems, a Consona ERP solution, for streamlining operations.
Hormann Electronics, Cork, Ireland, entered into receivership.
IEC Electronics acquired Val-U-Tech (wire harness assembler in Victor, N.Y).
Incap:
• named Sami Mykkänen president and CEO.
• is building a new plant in Tumkur, India.
• entered into a contract manufacturing agreement with Finland’s Slot Machine Association.
Jabil:
• added $150 million to its existing 8.25% senior notes due March 2018 in the 144a private placement market.
• received a manufacturing services contract for Location Based Technologies’ PocketFinder.
Jurong Technologies sold its plastic injection molding operations in
Singapore, Malaysia and China to MAP Technology Holdings for $26.3
million.
Kimball Electronics plans to build a 70 million zloty (US$32
million) factory in Poland for electronic components for the automotive
and medical industries.
Kitron received new orders from Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace for military RadioLink worth NOK 28.2 million.
Kovio moved its headquarters to a 95,000 SF facility in Milpitas,
CA. The new facility supports volume production of printed silicon
electronics.
LaBarge received a $1.6 Million PCBA contract for military radar
systems from Lockheed Martin and a $12 million contract from Northrop
Grumman for its MESA radar system.
Mara Technologies purchased four Assembléon pick & place machines.
MSI:
• entered the automobile electronics market by acquiring Jovialtek.
• held talks with Flextronics regarding the sale of its OEM motherboard
business which would allow it to focus on its branded business.
PartnerTech and Biotage expanded their cooperation and signed a new
agreement to manufacture instruments for DNA analysis and microwave
synthesis.
PartnerTech’s customer center in Åtvidaberg obtained medical device manufacturing accreditation” in Japan.
Plexus secured a manufacturing contract for Irisys’ thermal imagers.
Prism Electronics received a PCBA order from ERB for rail signaling equipment for the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link project.
Radius Group Sweden is investing €1 million to construct a new PCB
assembly department for power supply applications in Karlskrona,
Sweden, after management decided to bring back production from the
company’s EMS providers.
Raven Industries elected Daniel Rykhus a member of its board of directors.
Rommtech-3S (Rommens and Security Smart Systems JV) opened a CEM plant in Vratsa, Bulgaria.
Sanmina-SCI:
• will close its plant in Forserum, Sweden, in fall 2008.
• former workers in Guntersville, Alabama, became eligible for extended unemployment benefits from the U.S. Labor Dept.
Solectron’s former site in Cwmcarn, Wales, was partially rented to Relats UK.
Suntron joined Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
TT electronics condensed five global electronic manufacturing
services businesses into one integrated manufacturing services division.
TVAB is constructing a new plant in Poland to open September 2008.
Viasystems deployed Kinaxis RapidResponse in Mexico and China.
Winland Electronics:
• elected Thomas Goodmanson chairman.
• Sr. VP of sales and marketing Dale Nordquist resigned to pursue his new role as president and CEO of Zareba
Materials & process equipment
1-Source Electronic Components and ChipChecker teamed up to provide
a suite of material management services for wholesale buyers of
electronic components.
3M Electronic Solutions and Arrow Electronics extended their
distribution agreement to include the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.
ACE Production Technologies introduced a nitrogen peel-off jet that can improve fine-pitch selective soldering results.
Agilent Technologies introduced a flying leads probing solution for debugging embedded designs.
Applied Materials formed a new solar group, SunFab Operations, which is co-led by Mark Pinto and Randhir Thakur.
Assembléon introduced a new pick & place machine (MC-12) with a top speed of 36k components per hour.
Astro’s former employees secured exclusive distributorships in UK
& Ireland for Fuji, Vitronics Soltec and Autotronik equipment by
forming a new sales/service company, Productivity Partner Ltd.
Asymtek:
• appointed Chris Brown regional sales manager, UK and Ireland.
• introduced its Spectrum™ S-822 fluid dispensing system with dual-shuttle configuration.
Bando Chemical entered the PCB material market with silver nanoparticles that enable low-temperature sintering.
Blakell Europlacer will distribute EVEST equipment in the UK and France.
Contax received orders for two Universal System through-hole machines from TridonicAtco UK.
DesignAdvance:
• introduced CircuitProbe™, which enables bi-directional cross-probe between layout and schematic (PDF).
• released CircuitSpace v2.2.
Dow Chemical raised prices on all its products by up to 20%.
DYMAX received MIL-I-46058C and IPC-CC-830B certification for its conformal coating Multi-Cure® 987.
Essemtec:
• appointed Florian Schildein marketing manager.
• launched a batch manufacturing solution for customers producing sensor strips on flex PCBs with LED components.
Etek Europe became a representative of Control Micro Systems’ Gen4
PCB laser marking product line in the UK, Czech Republic, Hungary,
Romania, Bulgaria, France and Germany.
Five Star Technologies introduced new conductive polymer thick films that enable fine line screen printing.
GÖPEL broke ground for a third building in Jena-Göschwitz, Germany.
Heller appointed Luan Kuqi GM of its new office in Schwabach, Germany.
Hexion Specialty Chemicals filed a ‘Form CO’ with the European Commission regarding the proposed merger with Huntsman.
Huntsman raised prices by as much as 25% “in response to sharp and sustained increases” in costs.
IPTE debuted an in-line, multi-test handler for parallel operation for test or flash programming.
JUKI introduced its high-speed mounting machine FX-3 and dispenser
KD-2077, which have an optimized mounting speed of 74,000 chips per
hour.
Lincoln International appointed Franklin Harris managing director.
Manncorp released an economical batch-type lead-free reflow oven
designed to meet the needs of short-run assemblers with limited budgets
or floor space.
MYDATA acquired German distributor Royonic.
Orbotech opened a new demonstration and training center for electronics assembly solutions in Hameln, Germany.
Panasonic F. S. commercialized a new series of insertion machines
for components with wires that can reach speeds of 0.08 seconds per
component.
Polar Instruments & Xact PCB extended integration between
Polar’s Speedstack controlled-impedance PCB stackup system and Xact’s
Gemini-X PCB registration, prediction and control system.
Reflex Photonics released its Light on Board HyperDense product line for ultra-short reach optical interconnects.
Renesas and Mitsubishi developed a solder ball machine that can
deposit 13-µm-diameter balls using a lead-free solder alloy of silver
and tin (Ag-Sn).
Shenmao Technology increased its ASP for solder bumping paste to compensate for higher metal costs.
Tongtai Machine & Tool acquired 70% of Chin Jig Precision Machine for NT$28 million.
Tyco Electronics’ automotive facility in Greensboro, North Carolina,
received the 2007 Gold award for Safety from the N Carolina Department
of Labor.
Valor Computerized Systems:
• appointed Dan Hoz acting president and CEO after Ofer Shofman retired.
• Samsung Techwin formed a technology partnership that integrated
Samsung Techwin’s pick & place machine with Valor’s vPlan and
vManage software systems.
• established a technological partnership with Guilin University of Electronic Technology
• integrated its vManage MES solution to World Fair International’s operations.
Recent forecasts:
PC shipments will rise 13% YoY globally to 296 million units in
2008, and continue to grow by 10% in each of the two following
years.—IDC
Low-cost PC market will reach $3 billion in worldwide revenue by 2012.—IDC
HDD shipments will grow at a 9%+ CAGR globally between 2007 and 2012.—IDC
Disk storage systems capacity shipments will grow at a 53% CAGR globally from 2007 to 2012.—IDC
Cellular modem shipments will exceed 200 million units globally by 2013.—ABI Research
Spending on WiMax infrastructure, including base stations and
equipments will grow to $3.5 billion globally in 2011, more than
tripling from 2006.—IDC
Femtocells shipments will reach 100,000 units globally in 2008 and increase to double-digit millions by 2010.—ABI Research
Digital camera shipments will increase 15% globally YoY to 113.12 million units in 2008.
Large-sized (10 inches or longer) LCD market will grow 20% globally YoY to $88.9 billion in 2008.—iSuppli
Touch panel market is on track to grow to $3.3 billion and 660 million units globally by 2015.— DisplaySearch
GPS-enabled handsets shipments will exceed 550 million units by 2012.—ABI Research
Navigation devices and systems revenues are will reach US$62 billion by 2012.—ABI Research Forecasts
Electronic equipment end markets:
Japan’s PC shipments grew 0.1% YoY to 13.04 million units in fiscal 2007.—MM Research Institute
Worldwide motherboard shipments reached 148.8 million units in 2006.—MIC
Worldwide server shipments grew 7.6% YoY to 2.3 million units and revenue increased 4.3% to US$13.6 billion in 1Q’08.—Gartner
Global supply of 2.5-inch HDDs may run short in 3Q’08 due to fast
growing demand for use in Eee PCs, mini notebook PCs and UMPCs.
Worldwide sales of wireless LAN equipment, including independent and
dependent access points and WLAN switches and controllers, increased
20% YoY to $1.9 billion in 2007.—Infonetics Research
Intel is investing $1B in a WiMax JV between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire.
TV unit shipment growth slowed to 1% YoY globally in Q1’08.—DisplaySearch
Worldwide plasma display panel module shipments reached 3.65 million units in 1Q’08.—Displaybank
Mobile phone sales increased 13.6% globally YoY to 294.3 million units 1Q’08.—Gartner
India had 234 million users of mobile phone services at the end of 2008.
India’s electronics, computer software and services export value rose 41.5% YoY to $36.6b in 2006-2007.
Japan’s mobile phone shipments rose 6% YoY to 51.67 million units in 2007.—JEITI
Mobile navigation on-board device shipments were up 130% globally YoY to 39.0 million units in 2007.—Canalys
