My latest editorial looks at how buyers in the electronics supply chain are using their suppliers as an extension of their bank.
Category Archives: Hot Wires
Mycronic-Axxon Deal a Symbolic Milestone
Mycronic’s purchase of electronics dispensing OEM Shenzhen Axxon Automation Co. today signals a novel, if inevitable, milestone in the SMT processing equipment history: Chinese process equipment OEMs have reached the point where they are sufficiently viable and significant for Western companies to invest in.
Certainly there are no shortage of domestic Chinese OEMs. But relatively few have reached the technology or market share level needed to draw the interest of Western buyers.
No more.
The Last VCR
The news that the supposed last maker of VCRs, Funai Electric, will cease production on the video medium at the end of this month took me back to this blog item I wrote in 2009.
That’s when I retired my previous VCR, a Hitachi VT 2000A workshorse that served me well for 21 (!) years.
They say otherwise, but I’m still convinced that my first college roommates invited me to live with them because I was the only one they knew who had one. Happily, the friendship has outlasted the machines.
So sayonara to one of my favorite technologies!
P.S. I still have a few blank cassettes, if you know anyone who is looking.
‘Mike Buetow Humor’
When the reader titles their email “Subject: Mike Buetow humor,” you know I’m opening that one first.
Reader TE writes:
Just going through the July 2016 issue when I came across two (well, three really) very interesting announcements.
On page 14 is a small blurb in the first column: “Canadian mining firm First Majestic Silver says a surge in smartphones and tablets is creating a silver shortage that could send prices up 775%.” Now go over to page 15, first column and you will see not one, but two different articles, one on smartphone sales slowing by 2.6% and the second that tablet shipments will decline by 9.6 % this year.
These opposing announcements seem to be right up your alley regarding the irony of our industry, and even perhaps our times. Both can’t be true, so now I am wondering if either is. It’s a big lol from my corner.
Well played, TE: I loved the note, and your observation absolutely appeals to my sense of irony!
I can possibly account for why both could be true. The silver market, like any commodity or precious metal index, changes daily and can be highly speculative. If you look at the Metals Index chart on pg. 15, the Handy and Harman Silver index jumped 15% between Apr. 4 and May 9 this year, then fell 6% by the end of May.
Second, smartphone growth appears to be declining in terms of its rate, but still rising overall. So growth this year will be 3% instead of 11%. I wouldn’t call that a “surge,” but who knows what goes through the minds of those good persons at First Majestic Silver. Also, overall handheld phones shipments are actually growing — probably in the high single digits this year. And it’s also possible that silver speculators are guessing there will be a spike in the second half because of new models that will overcome the lackluster first half sales.
As for the tablets, well, I don’t have a good rationale for that one. We have two in my house and both are used as expensive coasters.
All that said, I highly doubt the silver price will “surge” (or even grow) 775%. At least not because of electronics demand, anyway. After all, election years do play funny tricks on things.
But that’s a column for another day.
Microbial Nanowires
Biologists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have genetically modified bacteria to produce tiny conductive wires that may one day be used in electronics.
Courtesy UMass AmherstIf we extrapolate this, does it mean that job-seekers won’t just have China and robots to compete with, but bugs, too?
Mel Breaks Loose
A fond farewell to Mel Parrish, who retired this week from STI Electronics.
I’ve known Mel (below, right) for more than 20 years, back to my days at IPC and his at the EMPF in Indianapolis. Through his stints at the Air Force, US Navy (China Lake), and finally STI, Mel has been a constant at the solder and training standards and certification programs. He’s also been one of those rare preternaturally even-keeled fellows you could rely on for technical advice, or a good story, or just some thoughtful wisdom.
STI president and CEO Dave Raby (above, left) said that while he’s happy for Mel, he has been “a vital part of our organization for many years and will be missed.”
I think the industry would agree in spades.
Hacked Off
It’s been just over three years since the US government indicted a former hacker at a major defense contractor for, ironically, spilling reams of classified information for all the world to see.
In doing so Edward Snowden irreversibly opened the eyes of the public to both the capacity of the US to plumb the world’s communication channels and the sheer volume of information it was collecting (or may still be collecting) on a routine basis.
But it also begged the question of why aren’t government networks more secure. Certainly there are hacks and attacks taking place at a near-constant frequency. Why are these channels still hooked up to the world at large? Would not the world’s respective defense departments be better served if they operated on secure, private networks that weren’t, for example, routed on common platforms? Put another way, isn’t the cost of being digitally pick-pocketed far greater than the nuisance of having to work on multiple systems?
Setting up systems as such wouldn’t prevent a rogue operator like Snowden from successfully spilling the beans, but it would create a far superior barrier from the reach of foreign hands than is currently in place.
In light of all the IP and security concerns so prevalent today, one would think we’d be wise to no only close the barn doors before the horse is pilfered, but also move the barn away from the farm once and for all.
Foxconn Can’t Say ‘No’ to Nokia
TTM Again?
Not quite 18 years ago, a pair of venture capital firms bought a small Washington fab shop named Power Circuits. The following year those two firms, Thayer Capital Partners and Brockway Moran & Partners, added Power Circuits in Santa Ana, CA, to its stable. It renamed the fabricators TTM Technologies.
Today TTM is one of the largest PCB fabricators in the world, with revenues of around $2.5 billion across 25 facilities and 30,000 employees. It made some of the largest acquisitions in industry history, and unlike some of its competitors, made those acquisitions work.
It’s not without some irony, then, that one of the former directors of Power Circuits has teamed with a venture capital fund to acquire a pair of Southern California fabricators this week.
History repeating?
Shane Whiteside, who was general manager and director of operations at Power Circuits, rose with TTM, eventually becoming executive vice president and COO before departing the firm in 2013.
With his background, Whiteside certainly would know which plants to target on the West Coast of the US. I haven’t been through KCA Electronics, but Marcel Electronics is one of the finest shops PCD&F has had the pleasure of visiting. I’m eager to see how this evolves.
Manufacturing Loss Costs More than Just Jobs
An ex Photocircuits engineer says the gutting of US manufacturing has led to a huge shift in ownership of US assets, with dire consequences for all Americans.
“With only a very small manufacturing base left, there is a small need to make capital investments in these businesses. Capital investments are what drive productivity,” writes Jason Tillberg.
He’s preaching to the choir, no doubt, but I always find it interesting when folks support their with details. In this case, Tillberg points to the massive transfer of ownership of US assets to foreign entities — remember Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” metaphor? — as a real cost paid by Americans through its inability (unwillingness?) to compete in manufacturing.
I find his thesis a bit incomplete and scattered, but he makes an important observation on capital investment and the disincentives to invest in a shrinking manufacturing base.
(As an aside, Tillberg talks about his experiences at Photocircuits in another piece on productivity written a few years back.)