ANDOVER, MA – MKS Instruments will buy Atotech for $5.1 billion, the firm announced on Jul. 1.

The cash-and-stock deal includes $16.20 in cash and 0.0552 of an MKS common stock for each Atotech share, a per share value of around $26. The offer represents a premium of about 10% to Atotech’s closing price on Jun. 10.

Carlyle Group, which owns 79% of Atotech, has agreed to the deal.

The deal is expected to close by the fourth quarter of 2021, expanding MKS’ chip manufacturing capabilities with the addition of Atotech’s plating chemicals. (CD)

ATLANTA – UP Media Group has opened its 2022 New Product Introduction Awards (NPI) for printed circuit board fabrication and printed circuit board assembly.

The NPI Awards recognize the leading new products for design, fabrication and assembly introduced in the 2021 calendar year. Awards are selected by an independent panel of judges from the industry and presented by CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY. No preferential treatment is given to customers of PCD&F, CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY or UPMG.

FREDERICK, MD – ACDi in July announced the acquisition of Enhanced Manufacturing Solutions to expand its geographical footprint, increase manufacturing capacity and complement service and product offerings. No financial terms were disclosed.

ACDi will offer printed circuit board layout and electronics manufacturing services in the New England area.

“We are looking forward to welcoming Enhanced Manufacturing Solutions’ employees and clients to the ACDi family,” said Bill Hornbaker, president and CEO, ACDi. “As a company we will be ideally positioned to penetrate new industries and expand into the northeastern region of the US. We are excited to add Enhanced Manufacturing Solutions, a team that shares our vision of being an agile partner with consistent high quality and customer service.”

PERRYSBURG, OH – IMCO Group in July acquired EMT Electronics Manufacturing Technologies for up to NIS 7 million (US$2.14 million). NIS 4 million will be paid at closing, with an additional NIS 3 million subject to future profit.

“This expansion gives further in-house capabilities of designing and assembling electronic PCBs,” said Eitan Zait, CEO, IMCO. “This move is a further step in IMCO Group’s path to provide its customers with complete solutions tailored for customers’ requirements, converging toward Tier-1 customers worldwide.”

“We are proud and excited to join the IMCO Group, and are confident our proven excellence for the production and integration of electronic systems and assembly of electronic PCBs will enable the group to enrich its capabilities and provide its customers with state-of-the-art solutions at the highest standards and technologies,” said Yaniv Hadar, CEO, EMT. (CD)

SEOUL – Doosan Group is selling off non-core businesses to focus on its electronics unit, according to reports.

The conglomerate’s printed circuit materials business projects 2021 operating profits will rise 17% from a year ago to 114.6 billion won ($99.9 million) on higher demand. It reported sales of 816.1 billion won last year.

Doosan forecasts electronics unit sales will rise to 2 trillion won by 2025, about 1.15 trillion won from laminates and 950 billion won in sales from new growth from displays, electric vehicle (EV) components and energy materials.

As part of a debt reduction plan, Doosan has sold its industrial and construction equipment units, which were responsible for a combined 44% of its operating profits, leaving the electronics, retail and hydrogen businesses.

Electronics now brings in 69% of the company’s overall operating profit, up from 39% before the divestitures. (MB)

Early in my career cutting-edge technology was personified in hardware, such as a wire EDM machine for cutting metal used in dies for wire-to-wire terminals: for instance, forks, rings and spades. No one in those days associated software with technology. It was simply some magic the IT department created to generate reports.

Decades later, most people immediately think of software, firmware and apps as technology, while the devices themselves, regardless of how advanced, are more or less just hosts for the apps. In our industry, there is far more recognition of the technology that goes into hardware and an appreciation that the two are codependent to provide the desired end-application. In fact, many in our industry may well believe the real magic is in hardware that can withstand a variety of operating environments, while providing a stable and robust platform for software to operate.

Are we in the post-Covid world yet? That simple question will ignite both outrage and debate in many parts of the world. Yet in other places people are ripping off their masks and starting to resume normal life. This disconnect has significant implications for electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies and their marketing strategies. It also has implications for people not wishing to transition from temporary work-at-home settings.

I live in Texas, and our governor has made mask mandates illegal, so I have had a preview of the psychological changes that hit when people who have been masking up and hunkering down for over a year suddenly don’t have to do that anymore. I’m fully vaccinated and am choosing not to wear a mask. Once the mask mandate was lifted, stores switched to encouraging those not vaccinated to continue to wear masks, but that choice is left to patrons. The first week I went shopping without a mask, I was in the minority. Three weeks later, the aisles are full of maskless people. Even store employees are ripping off their masks. In short, attitudes on masking shift quickly once unmasking starts and case numbers continue to drop.

Being a printed circuit board designer is not easy. Parts we used to take for granted have become really hard to come by. Geopolitical trade wars and a pandemic were serious triggers for the undersupply. We really didn’t need a Japanese chip factory to burn down to make things worse. A giant cargo hauler clogging up a vital shipping artery for a week was no help either.

The fear, uncertainty and doubt sown into the supply chain put the squeeze on purchasing managers who, in turn, did their best to secure as much material as possible. Ordering more inventory than their forecasted requirements is a typical kneejerk reaction for the big players. Some purchase orders may be defensive measures, an effort to block competitors that are caught shorthanded themselves.

Are you finding your place in the PCB industry? Are you feeling a bit disconnected from the rest of the world as you perform your PCB engineering job? Maybe you should consider joining a trade organization. Aligning and participating with a trade org that is well matched to your areas of expertise can be a monumental benefit to your career. It can put you in touch with others who can help you discover what you don’t know, but perhaps you’ve needed to know!

Our industry has many PCB engineering development groups and trade organizations. Finding the right ones to join may not be as easy as you think. Following some of the criteria PCB engineering quality assurance stakeholders use to find good products and services for their company makes it easier to narrow the list.

We’ve discussed the importance and care required when routing the power delivery network (PDN) of modern printed circuit boards. From how to support current supply needs, loop inductance, and defining layer stack-ups, it may seem we’ve addressed all the power concerns one could have. This is just a fraction of the considerations a designer needs to keep in mind, however. The PDN has an important secondary role that has nothing to do with power delivery. Often forgotten, the PDN is responsible for roughly 50% of the conduction avenues for the non-power signals.

Commonly referred to as return path, this routing “completes the loop,” enabling current to flow. It can be as influential (and problematic) to signal quality as the transmission lines we study in detail. In fact, failure to address the return path is a leading cause of signal integrity issues. Perhaps more troubling, they frequently go undetected even in the setting of comprehensive simulation.

We know the pandemic has forced many to work from home (WFH) and as a result driven up demand for products like PCs and home IT equipment. There has also been a large reduction in commuting to and from workplaces, which many have enjoyed and vowed to continue even after lockdowns are lifted.

These changes ought to benefit the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. We should consider the impact of the extra demands placed on data infrastructures to handle this upsurge in remote working, however. It takes energy to move all that data back and forth, although arguably this would happen whether workers are at the office or at home.

“My company has traditionally specified the finished thickness for each flex printed circuit (FPC) layer, and total thickness. This is because it’s understood some material layer thicknesses (i.e., adhesives) change during the manufacturing process due to compression and curing. As a purchaser of FPCs, we are less concerned with the initial raw material thickness than the finished thickness.

“We have received feedback, however, that the FPC market in general specifies the raw material thickness used in FPC fabrication, and not finished thickness. The assertion was nearly all customers purchasing FPCs follow this rule to minimize miscommunication. Is this common practice?”

This is the 25th NTI-100 report. The author cannot believe he has done NTI-100 such a long time. As years go by, it becomes more difficult to accurately record revenue data of privately owned PCB fabricators, and there are many. As a result, the data of about one-fifth of the top PCB companies are questionable. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the revenue trend.

As usual, data compiled by trade organizations and with the assistance of many of the author’s friends around the globe were vital to completing this report. He expresses his gratitude to all who helped. Any errors are strictly his responsibility.

The 2020 average exchange rate conversion of revenue from local currencies to the US dollar was made using the exchange rates listed in Table 1. Since various organizations and individuals seem to use slightly different rates, the results may differ but only slightly.

I’ve spent much of the past seven years dealing with insertion loss as it relates to PCB dielectrics, as well as losses due to copper roughness. During that period, there’s been comparatively little discussion regarding “skin effect,” a significant contributor to signal attenuation that in my view gets less attention than it should. While discussing the phenomenon in-depth, we’ll also discuss what, if anything, can be done to mitigate its impact on high-speed signals.

While writing this article, I’ve been thinking of places that skin appears in nature and pop culture. When I started writing, I flipped on Skinwalker Ranch on the History Channel for the first time as background noise, and they were talking about magnetic fields, current flow, and Tesla coils.

AS BOARD COMPLEXITY has increased with decreasing pitches, thicknesses and component sizes, ensuring support for thin, high-density substrates – essential to cost-effective, pinpoint accuracy stencil printing – continues to pose challenges. Using vacuum to secure miniaturized assemblies is, for the most part, a successful technique but requires the use of dedicated tooling plates, which can be costly. Considering the quantities of dedicated tooling blocks needed in a high-volume manufacturing environment, finding a suitable, lower-cost alternative has been a longstanding ambition. And, while commercialized automatic pin-based tooling systems are a good option for some applications, they are not as effective for high-density, thin boards.

THIS MONTH WE look at incomplete fill of plated through-holes. During any soldering operation a balance of flux and solder/paste chemistry and soldering temperatures creates good and reliable joints. In FIGURE 1 the solder has not filled the hole completely but still exceeds the requirements of IPC-A-610, class 2 of 50%; measured, it may be 75% filled.