“The modest sequential sales decline of one-half of 1% in January is an encouraging sign,” says SIA president George Scalise. “January is historically one of the weakest months of the year for the microchip industry. We are encouraged by recent signs of strength in the overall U.S. economy, as evidenced by the 3.8% growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter. Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research has noted that when GDP grows by more than 3%, semiconductor sales have shown healthy growth, except when there are excesses of inventory or production capacity. At the present time, neither production capacity nor inventory excess is a problem.”
(March 8, 2005) Singapore — Advanced Interconnect Technologies (AIT) announces the qualification of their new high-reliability (Hi-Rel), narrow-body SOIC packages, allowing them to provide customers with zero delamination after MSL 1, and 260°C pre-conditioning testing to improve overall reliability of the end product. This helps customers get unlimited floor life and cost savings on packaging and shipping of units, while ensuring robustness during critical reliability stress tests.