Comings and Goings

Big news: IBM will “sell” its chip operations to GlobalFoundries according to a joint statement by the companies. IBM will pay “the buyer,” owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, a reported $1.5 billion over the next three years to take the chip manufacturing business “off its hands.”

The world’s dozen or so leading chip foundries that account for more than 90% of global production (including IBM) will all be foreign-owned when this deal is completed.

Who benefits the most? Who will protect the innocent (chip users)? Is leaving America “foundry-less” good for the United States?

Back to the future. Lockheed is reported to have three captive PWB shops in the US. Northrup Grumman has an in-house board operation. Whelan is establishing a new highly automated in-house PWB operation. Intel is said to be planning a new captive board facility in Arizona and said to be offering a bounty for “successful” job referrals. Is it to develop new technology that independent shops cannot afford? Is it for secrecy? Is it to shorten supply lines? Is it to gain time to market or some other competitive advantage? Is it the start of a trend?

Is it still just the price? After visiting the Design-2-Part Show  (D2P) we revisited the concept of using value propositions to offset cheaper prices. We were astounded at the number of people that effectively stated that they would the cheapest system rather than the lowest cost equipment. Yes, there is a difference, and sometimes the added cost of using the cheapest system is substantial. We also found that those that bought the newer system with greater productivity, ease of use, updated software, and smaller footprint often ordered more of the units of the newer system after a short (several months) of running production along side of the “older” competitive models who tried to protect their business by simply lowering the price and promising future improvements.

Some things just never seem to change. When one visits some of the leading board makers making advanced substrates and assemblies in Asia today, one usually sees the latest production equipment. Then I thought of the New Jersey manufacturer that I met at D2P show, and wondered what I will see when I visit a new “highly automated” board maker in the U.S. next month.

Move over Amazon. Dragon Circuits in Texas announced that it successfully completed 14 test runs of delivery by drone of packages weighing up to several pounds. It did not state the range of the drones used in the test runs. Dragon has a drone division that builds a wide variety of these systems.

We need more industry participation and on campuses collaborations like the new Raytheon-UMass Lowell Research Institute (RURI). Plans for the center were announced in August. It officially opened on the campus on Oct. 10 in the school’s Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, the school’s new $80 million research center.

Kyle Homan, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, gave a presentation on printable electronics and nanotechnology at the opening. Raytheon has already embedded employees on site and plans to commit $3 to $5 million over 10 years to support the collaborative operation. It’s a great way to move critical technology forward while simultaneously training candidates for the company.*

Have you seen the TPCA’s (Taiwan Printed Circuit Association) first class promotional video on its interconnect industry? Take nine minutes and watch the video on the following link. ??????? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w_jIpYu54A

 

*Raytheon currently employs about 1,000 UMass Lowell alumni.

 

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About Gene

Gene Weiner has spent his entire career -- spanning more than 50 years -- in the printed circuit and semiconductor industries. He spent the early part of his career in R&D as a student technician at MIT Lincoln Laboratories, then became employee no. 4 at Shipley, and later vice president of sales and marketing at Dynachem and president of New England Laminates. He has been a consultant to leading materials, circuit board and semiconductor companies for several years, and sits on the board of Wong’s Kong King International and the MBA advisory board of the Malcolm Baldridge School of Business at Post University. He was inducted to the IPC Hall of Fame in 2006.