WASHINGTON – The Printed Circuit Board Association of America applauds the Pentagon's recently announced $46.2 million award to an American company to produce the latest integrated circuit substrates, high-density and ultra-high-density interconnects and advanced packaging.
The millions of dollars being distributed by leaders at the Pentagon are an important first step. But this critical industry requires investments and tax incentives in billions – not millions – to restore America’s leadership position in microelectronics.
Chips don’t float.
Despite semiconductors’ rockstar status they are only one third of the technology stack.
New chips produced in the U.S. funded by the CHIPS Act will still end up being shipped to Asia to be packaged with substrates and PCBs…made in Asia. We are exacerbating the supply chain issue by not addressing the entire technology stack.
Today every defense system is dependent on microelectronics. It is time for Congress to provide support for American-made microelectronics beyond semiconductors.
Without further investments in printed circuit boards, substrates, and the ability to do advanced packaging, our national and economic security remains at grave risk.
PARAMOUNT, CA – An exciting 2023 year comes to a close for the team at Excellon Automation Company. Excellon’s president, Bailey Su, relays “We turned on operations at our newly designed manufacturing facility, added new product lines, and increased staffing in the key areas of engineering, production, and service in North America. The changes we’ve implemented throughout this past year are definitely making us more competitive in the PCB manufacturing space.”
The layout of Excellon’s new facility located in Paramount, California, was designed to enhance the multiple, parallel threads of sub-assembly manufacturing. An increase in the capacity of such concurrent processes, feeding into the final assembly stage, has dramatically reduced production lead-times. A new MRP system has also been integrated to better drive material flow plans and production schedules. According to Nghia Tran, production manager, “With the implementation of our new strategy, production schedules have shown a 15% improvement in lead-time reduction.”
All Excellon systems are designed and manufactured in California. Product lines include mechanical drill and drill-router platforms (single to six spindle configurations) and the COBRA II laser systems. Excellon also offers spindle rebuild and electronics repair services at the IER operations in Riverside, California.
SAN DIEGO, CA – Chiplet Summit announces its initial keynote schedule with emphasis on AI applications. The second annual Chiplet Summit, to occur on February 6-8 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, has now set its initial keynote schedule.
Speakers will be:
Subi Kungeri, VP AI System Solutions, Applied Materials
Abhijeet Chakraborty, VP Engineering, Synopsys
Gurtej Sandhu, Sr Fellow/VP, Micron
Tony Chan Carusone, CTO, Alphawave Semi
Sam Salama, CEO, Hyperion Technologies
Cliff Grossner and Bapi Vinnakota, Open Compute Project
There will also be short talks by the UCIe Consortium, Silicon Catalyst, and SNIA.
Keynote topics will include AI solutions, design methods, memory, interfaces, new packaging methods, and the open chiplet economy. Attendees will learn how chiplets can make the latest designs take less time, cost less, and be more scalable. Presentations will focus on handling AI applications, such as ChatGPT®.
Summit General Chair Chuck Sobey says, “At our keynotes, attendees hear what industry leaders are planning. AI is an obvious driver everywhere. It requires huge amounts of memory, fast low-latency connections, and the ability to do both training and model execution at top speed. Making it work well takes engineering and R&D that covers all chip design stages.”
TROY, MI – Altair is delighted to welcome CADY to the Altair Partner Alliance (APA), where it will provide its AI-powered CADY Electrical Schematic Inspection SaaS solution. CADY will support Altair’s customers in inspecting their electrical schematics automatically – eliminating the need for users to do it manually, and giving them a comprehensive inspection report within a few hours compared to the days or weeks previously needed.
By detecting errors at an early stage, CADY improves and expedites the design process, reduces costs and resources, accelerates time to market, and improves final products’ quality, reliability, and safety. CADY is used in the telecommunications, automotive, consumer electronics, transportation, and many additional industries.
With CADY, users can:
Reduce re-spins
Shorten products' time to market
Improve products' quality, safety, and reliability
Find critical errors
Benefit from touchless onboarding
Access a library of more than 1 million active components
CADY was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. CADY specializes in addressing commonly found errors in electrical schematics of printed circuit boards (PCBs) – from simple and direct errors to complex logical errors that cause malfunctions and lead to PCB re-designs. Overall, CADY has established itself by automating the traditionally manual process of electrical schematic design. CADY’s mission is to enhance organizations’ productivity and streamline workflows.
“CADY and Altair are natural partners, as our cutting-edge EDA solution meshes perfectly with Altair’s unique platform,” said Gilad Shapira, co-founder and chief executive officer, CADY. “We are excited to provide Altair customers with access to CADY, which will empower them to save time and costs in new ways within their EDA and PCB workflows.”
FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES, FRANCE – ICAPE Group , a global technology distributor of printed circuit boards ("PCB"), today announced the successful completion of a financing package with a pool of nine European banks, as well as the issuance of Recovery Bonds.
Arnaud Le Coguic, Chief Financial Officer of ICAPE Group, stated: "I would like to thank all our banking partners for their confidence in our project. The successful implementation of this financing in an adverse economic environment underlines both the financial strength and the value proposition of our Group. The additional resources granted will enable us to reinforce our dynamic of aggressive external growth in the short and medium term, in line with our strategy.”
The financing operation consists of a Refinancing Loan for a total amount of €21 million (including three tranches of respectively €15.3 million to be amortized, €2.7 million in fine and €3.0 million in fine) and a €40 million external growth credit facility, of which €20 million are confirmed (including two tranches of respectively €17.0 million to be amortized, €3.0 million in fine).
TP ICAP Midcap was the exclusive financial advisor to ICAPE Group and Caisse Régionale de Crédit Agricole Mutuel de Paris et d’Ile-de-France acted as coordinator of the transaction and credit agent. Banque Palatine, Banque Populaire Rives de Paris and HSBC Continental Europe were mandated arrangers. The banking pool is composed of 9 lenders: Banque Palatine, Banque Populaire Rives de Paris, BNP Paribas, Caisse Régionale de Crédit Agricole Mutuel de Paris et d’Ile-de-France, Crédit Industriel et Commercial, Crédit Lyonnais, HSBC Continental Europe, Landesbank Saar and Tikehau Capital.
Peltier Juvigny Marpeau & Associés advised ICAPE Group on debt and bond issues, and Mermoz Avocats advised the banking pool.
€6 million of Recovery Bonds were subscribed by the Obligations Relance France fund (an investment fund managed by Tikehau Capital) and by the Obligations Relance France – Tikehau Capital fund.
De Gaulle Fleurance acted as advisor to Tikehau Capital.
SHENZHEN, CHINA – In the rapidly evolving tech industry, PCBPit, under the leadership of its Founder, Alex Pan, is extending its specialized services in PCB prototype manufacturing, fabrication, and assembly. Catering to a wide range of sectors, the company demonstrates its proficiency by handling complex circuit board designs and turning them into high-performance printed circuit boards.
For businesses of all sizes seeking PCB solutions, PCBPit continues to emphasize the importance of translating intricate designs into reliable and functional prototypes. Their team of skilled engineers and specialists work tirelessly to ensure that every project, irrespective of its complexity or volume, is handled with due diligence and expertise.
Turnaround times at PCBPit are contingent on the complexity and quantity of a project. However, they strive to ensure that production of simple PCB prototypes takes merely a few days. Owing to its stringent quality management procedures, PCBPit mandates rigorous quality checks throughout its production process. This diligent approach facilitates PCBs to fulfill their performance requirements successfully.
To further impress their commitment towards functionality and reliability, PCBPit leverages testing protocols before the delivery of each PCB prototype. Their comprehensive service includes PCB design services and is capable of accepting Gerber files, among other formats, for PCB design files.
Adding a feather to its cap, PCBPit offers a quick quotation service. It comprehends the high-volume demands of the industry, adjusting itself accordingly to handle such orders effectively. In pursuit of its quest for excellence and compliance, PCBPit makes sure that all its printed circuit boards are RoHS compliant, thus ensuring that its products are environmentally responsible.
As PCBPit expands its service offerings, Alex Pan and his team continue to dedicate themselves to providing intricate designs, reliable service, and high-performance outputs for their clients.
