Central to the outsourcing debate is the issue of protection for intellectual property (IP). Multinational companies (MNCs) must often accept the trade-off of low labor costs for engineering and component packaging, and lax IP-protection legislation in a given outsourcing region. This month, President Bush announced that the U.S. will bring copyright and IP violation charges against China to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Two major cases, focused on entertainment commodities, argue that China lacks the necessary legal structure to enforce copyrights and related trademarks, reports National Public Radio (NPR) correspondent Adam Davidson. This battle highlights the struggle between industry groups and the outsourcing strategies that maintain the electronics industry.
(April 18, 2007) SAN DIEGO — StratEdge released “Power Packages,” a package series that incorporates beryllium oxide (BeO) ceramic and a copper-composite base to provide thermal management for high-frequency, high-power chips. Package construction directly affects chip performance, said Jerry Carter, senior applications engineer, adding that the series is constructed for design engineers considering performance and reliability of their chips.