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VOLUME 31 - NUMBER 7 Product Preview:
SEMICON West
THE GLOBAL HI-TECH ELECTRONICS PUBLICATION July, 2016
Wacker Chemie Opens Polysilicon Production Plant in Tennessee
By Steve Leberstien
Charleston, TN —Wacker Chemie AG, in what is the Mu- nich-based company’s largest single investment to date, has opened a $2.5 billion production site in Charleston, Tennessee. At full capacity, the plant will produce 20,000 metric tons of pure polysilicon per year. The company ex- pects to reach capacity by the third quarter of 2016. A small town with a population of about 700,
Heading up Nordson DAGE's exhibit at SEMICON is its Quadra™ 7 X-ray inspection system. See Product Preview, beginning on…
Page 66 Spinnaker EMS
Leans on Yamaha Expertise
New Hampshire-based Spin- naker started with a Yamaha Emerald pick-and-place ma- chine and has added more Yamaha machines as the busi- ness has grown.
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This Month's Focus: Test and
Assembly
Japan Unix's expertise in lead-free robotic soldering is now being utilized by aero- space and aircraft manufac- turers.
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The ASSEMBLY Show Keynote
Mr. Raymond Muscat will deliver the keynote presenta- tion in Rosemont, IL.
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Distillation columns at the new facility. The site will increase Wack- er’s capacity for hyper-pure polysilicon by more than 20,000 metric tons per year (photo: Wacker Chemie AG).
Test Drive: the Hydrogen Powered Toyota Mirai
By Walter Salm
West Sacramento, CA — It’s a Shell gas station, but the sign above the fuel pump says “LINDE,” and on the end of the island, it says “Hydrogen.” Okay, it’s a hydrogen fueling station, and the gas is supplied by specialty gas provider Linde. As of this writ-
ing, it is the northernmost hydrogen fueling station in California, with several more in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. Inside the Toyota Mirai is a
slick, narrow instrument panel, tucked deep under a dashboard over- hang to eliminate reflections, glare, etc. The speedometer is digital, and the entire dashboard takes a little getting used to. As production cars go, the Toyota Mirai carries an MSRP of $57,000, which compares quite favorably with other all-elec- tric vehicles like the Tesla ($80,000 to $90,000 MSRP) which come with a limited range, typically between 100 and 200 miles (161 to 322km). Once you get where you’re going with the Tesla, the car requires three hours or
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Charleston attracted a group of high-powered political, business and government figures on April 18, 2016, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. These included Tennessee governor Bill Haslam, along with senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker.
Grand Opening The plant began production in December 2015 after
a nearly five-year construction period. So far, about 1,000 metric tons of pure polysilicon, used in both semiconduc- tors and photovoltaics, has been produced. In the coming months, the company will ramp up production at the plant until it reaches peak capacity. The company’s man- agement reports that testing of the initial product indi- cates a purity level equal to its mature facilities in Burghausen and Nünchritz, Germany. Samples of the Charleston plant’s polysilicon have been sent to various customers for further evaluation. Polysilicon is the material used
in the production of silicon wafers, the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vi- tal components of virtually all elec- tronic goods, including computers,
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N.A. PCB Shipments Are Up 5.6%
Bannockburn, IL — Total North American PCB shipments in April 2016 were 5.6 percent above the same month last year, causing year- to-date growth to remain at 5.5 per- cent for the first four months of the year. Compared to the preceding month, April shipments were down 16.8 percent. These figures were provided by
IPC — Association Connecting Elec- tronics Industries® which announced the April 2016 findings from its monthly North American Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Statistical Pro- gram. Sales and orders in April both exceeded last year’s levels and the book-to-bill ratio stands at 1.02. PCB bookings in April increased
6.4 percent year-on-year, boosting year-to-date bookings growth for the first quarter to 5.0 percent. Orders in April 2016 were down 19.3 percent from the previous month. “April was another good month
for the North American PCB industry, with solid year-on-year growth in both sales and orders,” said Sharon Starr, IPC’s director of market research. “Bookings exceeded shipments for the sixth consecutive month, but only by a small margin in April. This brought the book-to-bill ratio down although it remains positive,” she added. “Growth rates and book-to-bill ratios for the first quarter changed slightly from previously published reports, due to a re-tabulation necessitated by a change
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