Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - Fab News

Fab News

ADDISON, TX – Interconnect supplier AirBorn has acquired StrataFlex and Central Minnesota Tool. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

Toronto-based StrataFLEX designs and manufactures flexible printed circuits and assemblies for the military/aerospace, medical instrumentation and industrial markets.

Little Falls, MN-based CMT provides turnkey stamping, moldings and automation capability for assembly, for automotive, military/aerospace, medical instrumentation and telecom.

“This is a significant step forward for AirBorn,” says Cindy Lewis, president and CEO of AirBorn, in a statement. “Growth in the flex circuit market has outpaced growth in standard connectors."

LONDON – U.S. chemicals group Huntsman Corp. said it received a $6.1 billion takeover offer from private-equity firm Apollo Management, trumping a previously agreed deal with Dutch group Basell.

Read more: JPS to Acquire Hexcel Ops

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.

Read more: Sierra Proto Express Buys Teknicircuits

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.