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HERNDON, VA – A host of major OEM and EMS companies, under the auspices of iNEMI, has outlined a set of recommendations for managing Pb-free alloy alternatives.

The consortium members recommend the following to help manage the use of multiple solder alloys:

Drive convergence of Pb-free alloys.
Develop an industry-standard assessment methodology.
Establish performance guidelines.
Update standards.
Identify and differentiate alloys.

iNEMI members supporting these recommendations include Agilent Technologies, Celestica, Cisco, Delphi Electronics & Safety, Flextronics International, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation, Jabil Circuit, Motorola, Plexus Corp., Sanmina-SCI, Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments.

INEMI’s recommendations are available at
http://thor.inemi.org/webdownload/projects/ba/Pb-Free_Alloys/Alloy_recs.pdf

ARLINGTON, VA – Worldwide revenue for consumer electronics will grow nearly 10% this year, hitting $700 billion by 2009, says a recent report from the Consumer Electronics Association and the GfK Group.

Consumers will spend $42 billion more on CE products in 2009 over 2008. Countries with fast-growing economies and large emerging middle classes, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, will lead the way in new CE revenue growth, says the report. By 2009, China will account for nearly 15% of global CE revenue, trailing only North America (22% share) and Western Europe (16% share).

Consumers’ ongoing desire for mobility makes this the largest category worldwide in both unit sales and revenue. Collectively, sales of mobile products will surpass a staggering 1.5 billion units this year, says the report. Topping the list are portable navigation devices, with expected worldwide revenue growth of nearly 20%. Laptop computers (up 15%) and cellphones/smartphones (up 14%) will also see strong sales.

Global revenue for LCD TVs will grow nearly 28%, resulting in more than 100 million units sold worldwide. Flat-screen TV sales will account for nearly 20% of worldwide CE sales. DVD players have expected sales of 127 million units in 2008, while the forecast for video game console sales is 89 million units.