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Details: Written by Staff; Category: Fab News; Published: 21 June 2007

SUNNYVALE, CA - Ken Bahl President Sierra Proto Express announced that they have acquired the assets and book of business of Teknicircuits of Danbury, Connecticut. Sierra Proto Express will now be handling the fabrication of PCB's for Teknicircuits' customers.

Details: Written by Staff; Category: Fab News; Published: 21 June 2007

TAIPEI - According to sources, Compeq Manufacturing is leveraging its high-density interconnect (HDI) technology for the development of the notebook market.

According to Charles Wu, Compeq's chairman, the company will maintain it's ~ 20% share of the worldwide handset PCB market. In 2007 it will push into the notebook PCB market using Compeq's HDI technology.

Wu said that HDI technology will be used more frequently in notebook PCs to help reduce the size of products.

With ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) promising to become a market mainstream, Wu said the application of the HDI technology in notebook PCBs will see strong growth in 2008.

Market observers pointed out that Compeq's fellow competitors, HannStar Board and Gold Circuit electronics (GCE) are also well aware of the trend of HDI applications. The observers said GCE hopes to raise the proportion of revenues from HDI boards to 10% in 2007 from 4% in 2006.

Wu said another direction of Compeq's strategy for 2007 is to put out more high-end handset PCBs, which offer higher prices and can help shelter the company from price wars in the lower-end markets. Compeq's handset PCBs have been chiefly for entry-level and mid-range markets.

Wu revealed that handset PCB clients have almost cleared their inventories, and demand for July has shown signs of a slight rebound. But the significant growth may have to wait until August, he added.

Compeq will also start supplying rigid-flex PCBs to a client outside the handset industry for the first time in the second half of the year. Observers said Compeq's rigid-flex PCB shipments amount to 1-1.5 million units per month. Compeq shipped a total of 188 million units of handset PCBs in 2006, up 31% from 2005, according to the company.

Details: Written by Staff; Category: Fab News; Published: 21 June 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Tessera Technologies announces the release of a new wafer-level camera technology that has been designed to significantly advance the integration of miniaturized cameras into mobile phones, personal computers, security cameras, and other electronics.

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Details: Written by Staff; Category: Fab News; Published: 05 June 2007

TOKYO – JPCA 2007, while held in the middle of a slowdown in the electronics interconnect industry, must be considered an unqualified success. Between the innovations on display, the incorporation of the Protec assembly show, and real world collaboration, JPCA demonstrated the possibilities of realizing technical advances, and building the foundations for growth while maintaining profitability.
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SAN JOSE -- Two of the largest EMS firms in the world will join forces as No. 2 Flextronics International this morning announced it would acquire No. 3 Solectron Corp. for $3.6 billion in cash and stock.

The combined company will have about 200,000 employees and annual revenue of more than $30 billion, ahead of the current market leader, Hon Hai (Foxconn).

The companies will held a conference call Monday to discuss the deal. The call may be accessed by logging on to the Investor's section at flextronics.com.

GÜTENBACH, Germany – The solar industry continues to turn on the heat as it courts and claims PCB manufacturers and suppliers alike. RENA GmbH has acquired Höllmüller GmbH. Financial details of the acquisition have not been made public.

RENA manufactures equipment systems for the semiconductor and solar industries. Höllmüller is a manufacturer of wet process equipment for the PCB industry. A number of Taiwanese PCB companies have announced plans to expand into the flexible solar cell market this year. The Höllmüller acquisition by RENA is seen as further support for the business model.

In a press release, Jürgen Gutekunst, managing director of RENA GmbH said, “We see this as an enormous step forward. We intend to expand our market share of the photovoltaic industry even further with the acquisition of Höllmüller Maschinenbau GmbH and to cover a large part of the rapidly growing market.” Gutekunst added, “We want to operate with more force on the world market. We can achieve this by bringing our production capabilities in line with the speed of the market growth.”

RENA has employs 300 people at three locations in Germany. The company’s 2006 turnover was over € 60 m. The core business is equipment systems for semiconductor and solar applications. In 2001 the company began manufacturing equipment for the solar cell market. In 2006 this was expanded to include systems for the fabrication of solar wafers.

Managing director of Höllmüller, Joe Kresky said about the acquisition, “An extremely positive combination of two companies that are well established on the market – for us a win-win situation.” Kresky continued, “The two companies complement each other in their technologies and both wish to expand even further.”

Both companies will continue to operate under their own names. Expansion plans are already being discussed. The Höllmüller operations in Poland will double in size in the medium-term and some of the locations in Germany will also be expanded.