Tecan Components has developed new manufacturing techniques for the production of semiconductor leadframes, offering significantly higher specifications than traditional techniques.
Tecan Components has developed new manufacturing techniques for the production of semiconductor leadframes, offering significantly higher specifications than traditional techniques to produce economical parts with increased lead density and higher accuracy. Traditional methods of leadframe manufacture include photochemical machining and machine punched parts for high-volume production needs, but the techniques have mechanical accuracy limitations. As electronic component packaging moves towards ever-smaller requirements the physical restrictions of these methods have been reached.

With proven electroforming technology, Tecan has mapped the way forward by producing leadframes, in any volume and to such high accuracy, that parts can now be made half the original size or with double the lead capacity for the same footprint.

Fine-pitch dimensions and tolerances can now be catered for which were previously not possible or were prohibitively expensive.

Application areas are wide and varied, covering low and high-lead-count semiconductor and other multilead component needs across the full spectrum of the electronics manufacturing market.

The company is able to supply quantities at all levels of production - from rapid prototypes and small-batch samples, to medium and high-volume needs.

The parts can be supplied gold plated and cater for all modern production and assembly techniques - from loose parts, to waffle trays, or tape and reel.

Subject to acceptance, a bespoke rapid prototype service guarantees despatch of first samples within five working days.

In addition to rapid delivery of the first low-volume parts, the service has other benefits.

For example, once a part is adopted, down-the-line production speeds and costs are reduced because the tooling is already in place.

Modifications can be cost-effectively incorporated within the company’s powerful CAD system, ensuring any knock-on tooling costs are also minimised.

The PS4900 Series of Compact Packet Switching Backplanes (cPSB) from Kaparel support Switched Ethernet, as defined by the PICMG 2.16 draft specification and offer high capacity CompactPCI.
The PS4900 Series of Compact packet switching backplanes (cPSB) from Kaparel support Switched Ethernet, as defined by the PICMG 2.16 draft specification and offer high capacity CompactPCI, incorporating packet-switching architecture for developers of next-generation telecomms networks. The Compact Packet Switching Backplane provides a way to design telephony and high availability systems that combine CompactPCI with Ethernet for high-speed systems. This allows OEMs to build systems that are now more reliable, less expensive and faster to market, without waiting for the future switched fabrics.

Kaparel’s President and CEO, Ben Robitaille, stated, “Kaparel has been designing custom Switch Fabric backplanes up to speeds of 1.25Gbit/s since 1998 and welcome standardisation in the industry”.

Robitaille continued,” Kaparel has been a member of the PICMG 2.16 subcommittee since its inception and the Compact Packet Switching Backplanes drastically improve the speed, scalability and reliability of CompactPCI, while maintaining its mechanical, power and hot-swap features.

Our PS4900 Series backplanes offer the market a product that can be easily configured for application-specific custom designs”.

The key elements of cPSB according to the PICMG 2.16 committee are that Compact Packet Switching Backplanes have an Ethernet infrastructure embedded in the CompactPCI midplane that is accessed via the J3 connector.

The Ethernet switching element resides on one or more of the cPCI slots, interconnecting all the slots in the chassis.

Also, all subsystems operate as stand-alone “systems on a card” and the interface with each through a network stack on top of the Ethernet.

ST Assembly Test Services has appointed Ng Tiong Gee as Chief Information Officer to drive the company’s global IT strategy.
ST Assembly Test Services has appointed Ng Tiong Gee as Chief Information Officer to drive the company’s global IT strategy. Reporting directly to STATS’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ng has overall responsibility for STATS’ total IT strategy and infrastructure. As Chief Information Officer, he will play a significant role in shaping and implementing strategies for building an integrated IT architecture across STATS’ global operations.

“Tiong Gee has over 14 years of IT experience, primarily in manufacturing-related industries.

His extensive background in conceptualising and implementing state-of-the-art IT infrastructure for leading technology companies will help us build a first class IT infrastructure to serve customers better and enhance the efficiency of our global operations”, said Tan Bock Seng, STATS Chairman and CEO.

Before joining STATS, Ng was Chief Information Officer of Gateway Singapore, heading the technology multinational’s IT activities in Asia Pacific.

Prior to this, he spent over six years with Siemens Components (now known as Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific) where he last served as Director of Information Systems and Services.

Between 1988 and 1992, Ng held various key engineering positions at Digital Equipment Singapore, now part of Compaq.

Ng graduated with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with honours from the National University of Singapore in 1987.

He also holds Masters degrees in Science (computer integrated manufacturing) and Business Administration from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

APW Electronic Solutions has extended its CompactPCI backplane offering with new DIN M single power slot models.
APW Electronic Solutions has extended its CompactPCI backplane offering with new DIN M single power slot models. Power to the backplane is via an industry-standard DIN M connector on the left hand side of the backplane outside the CompactPCI area. A 26-way connector, located next to the DIN M slot, enables access to the APW 300W PSU signal connector, providing user access to PSU status and allowing remote control.

The backplane’s power and ground planes are designed to distribute more than 125W/slot, giving a generous safety margin over the 100W/slot defined in the PICMG specification.

Available in heights of 3 and 6U conforming to PICMG Rev 3.0, and in 6U CT/H.110 variants, the latest versions are designed for applications where N+1 redundancy capability is not required.

All models have right hand system slots as standard, support hot swap at all slots, are fitted with pull-up terminations on all 64 data lines and are available in 4-, 6- and 8-slot versions.

All widths support 66MHz operation, even though 66MHz systems are limited by the PICMG Specification to five slots.

All models, including the 3U sizes, support 32 and 64-bit operation and are provided with both 3.3 and 5V power planes.

To guarantee backplane clock skew of less than 1.2ns and provide the highest possible clock signal integrity, all clock lines are matched to less than +/-1mm, run on inside layers and are without vias.

All backplanes have provision for Schottky diode terminations on all signal lines to ensure that the 10ns maximum propagation delay is not violated when a lightly loaded backplane is used in conjunction with strong PCI buffers.

As a further benefit, Schottky diodes also prevent damage to logic devices by clamping negative swinging signals.

Continuing a long-established tradition, APW Electronic Solutions is providing early backplanes meeting the exciting new CompactPCI 2.16 Packet Switching Backplane (PSB) specification, approved as Dra
Continuing a long-established tradition, APW Electronic Solutions is providing early backplanes meeting the exciting new CompactPCI 2.16 packet switching Backplane (PSB) specification, approved as Draft Rev 1.0 at the PICMG Executive meeting held in Boston on 5th September. At present, the CompactPCI specification enables single conversations operating at 66MHz over a 64bit databus, a bandwidth of approximately 4Gbit/s transfer rate, albeit limited to only five slots on a contiguous backplane. The PICMG 2.16 draft specification allows two switching fabrics, each supporting 20 simultaneous conversations at 2Gbit/s to provide a 40Gbit/s transfer rate.

Developers can also create “virtual backplanes”, expanding to any number of CompactPCI (or non-CompactPCI) systems, by running either fibre or CAT5 Ethernet cables to external connections that extend the packet-switched bus.

CompactPCI/PSB significantly improves performance, scalability and reliability of CompactPCI while preserving its mechanical, power, hot-swap attributes and H.110 capabilities.

The CompactPCI/PSB is a star topology: in a 2.16-enabled system, boards are defined as nodes (equivalent to LAN workstations) or fabrics (equivalent to LAN hubs).

The 2.16 draft specification expands CompactPCI by over-laying up to two switched Ethernet networks embedded in the CompactPCI backplane on P3.

All node slots in the chassis are interconnected through switching fabric slots.

Node cards operate as standalone “systems in a slot”, interfacing with each other through a network stack such as TCP/IP.

APW’s initial product is a 15-slot CompactPCI/PSB backplane with H.110 support consisting of two power slots, a right-hand processor slot, 12 node board slots and two fabric board slots integrated into a 9U chassis that fits within the standard 19in rack mechanics.

An option for this backplane is the ability to bridge two CompactPCI segments with the patented StealthBridge.

Another option is the provision to allow the system slot to participate in the packet switching architecture as a node slot.

In addition to PICMG 2.16, this backplane conforms to PICMG 2.0 r3.0 CompactPCI (which incorporates basic hot swap), PICMG 2.5 r.1.0 Computer Telephony and PICMG 2.9 System Management Bus.

There are plans to extend the offering to a non-H.110 backplane as well as a full 21-slot backplane.

Kaparel Corp has announced the launch of the PS4900 Series of compact packet switching backplanes (cPSB).
Kaparel Corp has announced the launch of the PS4900 Series of compact packet switching backplanes (cPSB). The PS4900 cPSB Series of backplanes is a follow on from the original 21-slot PS4900 announced in September after ratification of the PICMG 2.16 standard. This series of backplanes supports Switched Ethernet, as defined by the PICMG 2.16 specification and provides a variety of off-the-shelf configurations.

The Kaparel PS4900 Series (PS4900, PS4908, PS4918, PS4920, PS4921 and PS4922) of PICMG 2.16 compact packet switching backplanes provides a way to design telephony and high availability systems that combine CompactPCI with Ethernet for high-speed systems.

This allows OEMs to build systems that are now more reliable, less expensive and faster to market, without waiting for the future switched fabrics.

Ben Robitaille, President and CEO of Kaparel stated: “We have been a member of the PICMG 2.16 subcommittee since its inception.

The Kaparel PS4900 Series of cPSB backplanes offer the market a range of off-the-shelf products that provides developers several configurations to bring the CompactPCI with Ethernet systems faster-to-market, based on the PICMG 2.16 architecture.

This also allows Kaparel to provide a custom design for OEM’s and Integrators, based on the PICMG 2.16 in rapid time”.

Tom Sutherland, Kaparel’s Director of Product Marketing concluded: “Kaparel also offers the PS6090-cPSB developers packages with the Kaparel PS4900 backplane in a Rittal chassis, power supplies and is optionally available with two Performance Technologies IPnexus 2.16 switches to provide a platform for cPSB system development.

In2tec is supporting the trend towards replacing hard-substrate PCBs with flexible thick-film polyester circuits, delivering a number of benefits.
In2tec - formed earlier this year following a management buyout of ITT Industries’ membranes facility in Kettering - is supporting the trend towards replacing hard-substrate PCBs with flexible thick-film polyester circuits, delivering a number of benefits. Most important from a design standpoint is the ability flexible circuits have in following a free flow curve, thus minimising front surface design restrictions. Cost is another important factor.

Polyester substrates provide significant material cost saving versus conventional FR4 copper board or flexible Kapton technology.

Also, the ability to be extremely low profile and flexible means that by using polyester circuits manufacturing costs for complete front panel assembly can be reduced, as all components are provided on one circuit, eliminating the need for holes, soldering and mounting.

More, flexible circuit technology can reduce the necessity for additional flying leads, thereby reducing board to board connector requirements by as much as 50%.

Flexible polyester substrates weigh significantly less than their copper based counterparts and can reduce the need for additional daughterboards.

Finally, taking environmental issues into consideration, conductive adhesive technology used on polyester substrates allows a lead-free manufacturing process to be employed.

PCB Quotes, the free Internet PCB buying service, has enhanced its service to PCB buyer and PCB manufacturer alike by the addition of several new features.
PCB Quotes, the free Internet PCB buying service, has enhanced its service to PCB buyer and PCB manufacturer alike by the addition of several new features. For PCB buyers the service is now able to support enquiries for all types of PCB assembly work, in addition to just PCB fabrication. For PCB companies wishing to expand their client base, the service now provides highly targeted enquiries based on their production facilities and lead times.

MD John Bradford said: “The additions are part of an ongoing process of improvement and have come directly in response to demands from PCB buyers and from our member PCB companies.

Many of these companies have invested heavily in new equipment, and need to fill this extra capacity.

Our service complements their existing marketing, and is seen as a cost effective solution to finding new clients”.

PCB Quotes is now into its second year of operations, and with over 3000 registered users the service continues to expand.

This is in stark contrast with others in the sector who continue to suffer, or have disappeared altogether.

Bradford attributes this success to the novel manner in which PCB buyer and PCB manufacturer are able to deal directly with each other.

“We all know how important it is to build relationships with new clients, and we seriously believe that this can only be achieved by dealing direct with the client.

We have deliberately avoided the middleman approach adopted by some services, and ensure new incoming enquiries are emailed to relevant PCB companies within seconds of being received.

It is then up to the PCB company to contact and quote the client direct.

The member PCB companies who have benefited most from this approach are those who have sales procedures in place, and are quick to respond to enquiries”.

Schroff has expanded its range of power backplanes.
Schroff has expanded its range of power backplanes. The boards can be fitted anywhere within the backplane area, and are generally used as adapters between 19in power supplies and the backplane. They offer significant benefits to users involved in prototype and small-sized production, because the costly development and manufacture of application-specific backplanes with integral power supply is no longer necessary.

The new model with P47 connector now provides CompactPCI system developers with a simple, quick and economic means of connecting PICMG 2.11-compliant power supplies, such as Schroff’s maxpowerPRO unit, to CompactPCI backplanes.

The new power backplane features a particularly high degree of modularity.

It supports the connection of up to four power supply units in parallel, with separable fault signals for failure and derating of outputs.

This means that a higher-level monitoring unit, such as Schroff’s Chassis Monitoring Module (CMM), can perform logical operations on the signals before they are forwarded to the CPU.

This is an essential requirement for studying at the prototype stage the monitoring of redundant power supplies in high-availability systems.

Of course it is physically possible to connect the fault signals in parallel, but technically this is not compatible with redundant operation of several power supplies.

The System Management Bus as specified in PICMG 2.09 is integrated on the board, so that together with the definable geographical address of each slot, information on the status of each power supply in the system can be monitored at a higher level.

A new name has appeared in Europe’s list of PCB manufacturers.
A new name has appeared in Europe’s list of printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturers - Circatex. Formed following the successful management buy out of the former Viasystems PCB operation on South Tyneside, in the Northeast of England, the new company has a simple aim: to provide its customers with the highest quality, high technology PCB solutions quickly. “Customers expect high quality, the latest technology and cost competitiveness from all PCB manufacturers”, said Charles Brooks, Circatex chief executive officer.

“What makes us unique is that we can offer all this and provide a very fast turnaround.

Producing prototypes quickly is the norm.

We alone have the capability to deliver volume quantities within three to five days of accepting a design.

Our message to customers is quite simple: quality PCBs, any technology, any volume, any time”.

Circatex’s 31,000m2 South Shields plant employs 800 workers dedicated to providing the optimum solution for printed circuit board technology from the simplest double-sided boards, through to high layer count designs, employing sequential micro-via, buried and blind-via configurations, with thick back-panels and ultra-thin inner-layer cores.

From complex high density interconnect (HDI) boards for the telecom industry to high reliability automotive designs, Circatex has the full range of solutions.

The Circatex South Shields plant operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Its highly experienced workforce currently produces well over 6 million PCBs annually.

Quality and service are an integral part of the company’s philiosophy.

Among other standards Circatex is QS9000 approved, and offers all industry quality certifications.

Quality support is available 24-hours a day.

A customer service helpline ensures fast and efficient communication from quote response to delivery of finished product.

The advent of Circatex brings a new name, new owners and new strategy to an established and well respected high technology business.

With the benefit of ‘hitting the ground running’, Circatex aims to consistently operate at the forefront of technology, quality and service.