Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - Market News

Market News

ATLANTA – UP Media Group Inc., parent company of Circuits Assembly and Printed Circuit Design & Fab, announced today that online registration for Virtual PCB, the industry's first virtual trade show and conference for the PCB design, fabrication and assembly markets, will open on Dec. 7.

VANCOUVER – Dr. Shigeo Shingo, credited with codeveloping TPS, also known as Lean, has published a new book called Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking.

In the book, Dr. Shingo reveals how he taught Toyota and other Japanese companies the art of identifying and solving problems.

Six models – the scientific thinking mechanism – are presented. These frameworks permit groups to deconstruct problems and rebuild them into improvement ideas. This concept is said to provide the foundation for any Lean initiative.

Dr. Shingo co-created the Lean concepts with Taiichi Ohno in the 1940s and 1950s while working at the Amano Manufacturing Plant in Yokohama, Japan.

To download a chapter of the book, visit http://www.superfactory.com/articles/Bodek_Kaizen_Creative_Excerpt.htm.

The book is available at www.enna.com.

MUNICH – The final tally is in, and the numbers reveal Productronica as – still – the world’s largest electronics manufacturing trade show. Some 1,484 exhibitors from 35 countries attended last week’s show.

SAN JOSE, CA – North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.23 billion in orders in October and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.83, according to SEMI.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – Smartphone OS-based phones will grow at more than a 30% CAGR for the next five years globally, taking an increasing share of the overall phone market otherwise growing in single digits, reports In-Stat.

The unit volume of smartphones globally exceeds the unit sales for laptops, according to the research firm.

Users are experiencing significant value from their smartphones, In-Stat says. As a result, they are downloading more applications and generating higher usage as measured by average revenue per user for wireless carriers.

“Because of the value users are finding, organizations are slowly taking ownership of smartphones and data applications used for business purposes,” says Bill Hughes, In-Stat analyst. “Rather than having overcomplicated reimbursement plans, more organizations are finding it more expedient and economical to treat wireless voice and data services as a business expense when they use smartphones.”

Research by In-Stat found the following: All smartphone OSs (other than the Palm OS) will grow at double digits during the next five years; a smartphone user who travels has twice the ARPU of a typical feature phone user; smartphone use will grow mostly from use as a laptop replacement, and as a tool to help manufacturers develop feature phones.

SAN JOSE, CA – Worldwide sales will surpass $321 billion in 2010 with a CAGR of 7.7% for the period between 2007 and 2010, the Semiconductor Industry Association today reported in its annual forecast of global semiconductor sales.