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Rohm and Haas Company has reported second quarter 2008 sales of $2,567 million, a 17% increase over the same period in 2007, with Electronic Materials and the chemical businesses outside North America delivering strong growth. The Electronic Materials Group comprises two reportable segments which provide materials for use in applications such as telecommunications, consumer electronics and household appliances. Sales for the Electronic Materials Group were $536 million in the second quarter of 2008, up 34% over the same period in 2007, reflecting the impact of acquisitions in Display Technologies as well as solid organic growth of Electronic Technologies. The Electronic Technologies segment is comprised of the company's Semiconductor Technologies, Circuit Board Technologies and Packaging and Finishing Technologies business units. Sales for the segment of $460 million were up 16% versus the second quarter of 2007, driven by strong growth in Asia for all business units. Sales in the second quarter excluding precious metals pass-through sales were up 15%. Semiconductor Technologies sales grew 13%, reflecting strong demand and favorable currencies, particularly in the Asia Pacific Region. Circuit Board Technologies sales increased 20% as compared to the same period last year, with solid growth in the Asia Pacific Region more than offsetting declines in North America. Packaging and Finishing Technologies sales rose 20% versus last year, primarily driven by strong growth in precious metal sales and in process sales. Adjusted pre-tax earnings for this segment of $107 million were up 11% from the second quarter of 2007, reflecting increased demand and favorable currencies, partially offset by higher metal costs and increased costs related to expansion efforts, including the new Asia Technical Center in Taiwan.\n\n\n

Growth in Asia is illustrated from this reporting at multiple levels of business - Opportunities are available for copper in a multitude of applications.

As the company continues to expand in both established and emerging electronics manufacturing regions, the electronics group of Henkel announced a new partnership to extend its presence in South Africa, signing on PEM Technologies to represent its line of Loctite brand electronics adhesives in the growing South African region.Though it is not often considered a major electronics manufacturing locale, South Africa is, in fact, one of the fastest growing regions for certain sectors within the electronics production market. Automotive, military/aerospace and contract manufacturing are all seeing significant growth rates and Henkel anticipates that this will only continue for the foreseeable future.\n\n"Recently, we have seen major manufacturers in automotive and in military/aerospace either transfer production from Europe to South Africa or set up additional, dedicated South African production sites," comments Richard Boyle, Regional Technical Service Manager for Henkel. "And, growth in the contract manufacturing sector--particularly for telecom, IT and entertainment products--is even more rapid and represents the largest area of expansion for Henkel," Boyle continues. "Establishing a partnership with a strong regional distributor like PEM Technologies is critical to our strategy for growth in this promising region." Steve Eglinton, Managing Director of PEM, is confident the company's relationship with Henkel will only serve to further enable customers' competitiveness. "Without question, Loctite is the leading brand of adhesives for electronics manufacturing and we are very enthusiastic about \nrepresenting Henkel materials throughout South Africa," says Eglinton. "Henkel's philosophy of supporting the customer through top-notch applications expertise, technical service and materials-based productivity enhancing tools is completely in line with PEM's approach. With Henkel's leading materials technologies, we look forward to helping customer

NEC Electronics America Inc. introduced to the Americas twenty-two new 16-bit All Flash microcontrollers (MCUs) for compact, low-power, battery-operated, and sensor-enabled systems. Based on NEC Electronics' high-performance 16-bit 78K0R CPU core, the new 78K0R/Kx3-L MCUs offer very low power consumption to extend battery life, and more on-chip integration to help reduce the size and cost of battery-driven and sensor-enabled systems, such as fire and security alarms, meters, industrial sensors, anti-shake digital cameras, handheld medical diagnostics devices, and data-logging and point-of-sale terminals. In addition to low power consumption, the new lineup offers high-performance on-chip oscillators, built-in circuits for sensor functions, and extended system operating time. "As environmental awareness has grown, energy-saving systems have become particularly reliant on MCU technology," said Jim Trent, Vice President, Multipurpose Microcontroller and Automotive Group, NEC Electronics America. "Over the past several years, NEC Electronics has delivered many ultra-low-power 8- and 32-bit MCUs that have met the demand for energy efficiency. With the introduction of the new 78K0R/Kx3-L devices, however, NEC Electronics is now delivering the benefits of energy efficiency in its 16-bit products."

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars have received a great deal of attention over the years as a clean alternative to petroleum-based transportation, producing only water for exhaust. Certainly the technology is known. Demonstration vehicles have been produced by several manufacturers and Honda is starting to roll out a fleet of 200 FCX Clarity fuel-cell cars, available for lease to select customers for US $600 per month. These autos are costing Honda hundreds of thousands of dollars each though, according to Honda's president Takeo Fukui (Wall Street Journal, June 16 2008), and it will take another decade before their cost falls below US $100,000. Although fuel-cell cars remain a long way from providing commercially viable transportation for the vast majority of people, cars are not the only application for fuel cells. Fuel cells are reaching commercial viability sooner in other applications such as portable electronics, including laptops, cell phones, MP3 players and games, aiming to supplement the ability of batteries to power these mobile devices for extended periods of time. There are a number of reasons why fuel cells may prove more competitive in portable electronics than in cars, including the favorable cost, lifetime requirement and easier distribution in this market. One of the companies developing fuel-cell technology for portable electronics is Polyfuel, using its proprietary hydrocarbon membrane technology for direct methanol fuel cells. The cost of power for portable electronics, according to Polyfuel president and CEO Jim Balcom, is up to US $10,000 per watt, compared with US $20-50 for autos, making portable electronics a much more attractive market than cars initially.

"Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have not yet met commercial expectations from a decade ago, and now hot on its heels is graphene. Graphene is considered a hot candidate for applications such as computers, displays, photovoltaics, and flexible electronics. IDTechEx market forecasts indicate that CNT and graphene transistors may be commercially available in volume from 2015 onwards, according to the new report \"Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene for Electronics Applications 2011-2021\". According to IDTechEx, the biggest opportunity for both materials is in printed and potentially printed electronics, where the value of these devices that partly incorporate these materials will reach over $44 billion in 2021."

"University of Illinois researchers have developed heat-triggered self-destructing electronic devices, a step toward greatly reducing electronic waste and boosting sustainability in device manufacturing. They also developed a radio-controlled trigger that could remotely activate self-destruction on demand."

Recycling electronics is never easy, so it's extremely helpful when electronics companies take it upon themselves to help out. Panasonic announced today that is creating a program in the United States to let consumers easily recycle Panasonic products free of charge. The program, which is scheduled to start November 1, is being managed by the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company-a joint venture between Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp.

""There have been sharp technological advances in the auto sector, which requires highly functional copper," Keiichi Kobayashi, corporate senior vp, automotive and electronics material field, copper and high performance material products division, told Metal Bulletin sister title Copper Price Briefing. The growth in the auto market increases demand for the company's highly functional copper products, he said, adding that demand from the electronic devices markets such as mobile phones was good but can fluctuate a lot. The company's product share is comprised of 40% automotive, 40% electronics and 20% infrastructure."

Applied Nanotech Holdings Inc announced that its subsidiary, Applied Nanotech Inc (ANI), established a strategic development program with Optomec, Inc, a provider of printed electronics for solar, display, electronic packaging and flexible electronics applications. As a part of the commitment, ANI will install a dedicated Optomec M3D aerosol jet printer at its facilities in order to adapt its copper ink to Optomec's patented ultra high resolution printing technology. By utilizing ANI's copper ink, the Optomec printer will offer the solar, display, flexible circuit and PCB manufacturers contact-free deposition of high quality, low cost metal lines, the companies said. According to the companies, the Optomec printing solution is able to produce much finer lines than is currently possible with traditional screen printing and inkjet printing equipment. The combined ANI/Optomec copper ink printing solution will provide an alternative to silver inks facilitating lower cost, coupled with the promise of higher reliability. Furthermore, ANI's copper inks do not require expensive vacuum installation or inert gas environment lowering the cost of the capital for manufacturing equipment.

Conditions in the global electronics contract manufacturing business are continuing to deteriorate due to the recession and the weakening high-tech industry, prompting iSuppli Corp to further cut its short- and long-term growth expectations for this volatile industry. Global contract manufacturing industry revenue, consisting of sales by Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) and Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) providers, now is expected to decrease by 9.9 per cent during 2009 with revenues of $270.8 billion, compared to $300.7 billion in 2008.

Silver-zinc battery chemistry is currently poised to move into the commercial marketplace for use in consumer electronics. This new silver-zinc battery chemistry uses the latest in advanced polymers, nano-technology, power electronics and processing methods to create a battery that surpasses other rechargeable batteries for notebook computers, mobile phone and consumer electronics applications.

Official data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revealed that major electronic information manufacturing company profits declined by 14% y-o-y, reaching RMB122B in H1 2012. The decline in profits was attributed to weakening orders caused by the European debt crisis and slowing world economy. The number of electronic manufacturers reporting a loss over H1 2012 rose by 20.2% y-o-y, to reach 4,250, which is thought to be as a result of high financing costs.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy issued a report yesterday touting the role that semiconductor-based technologies have played in making the U.S. economy more efficient. At the same time, the International Energy Agency issued its own report calling on governments around the world to be more aggressive with efficiency standards for ICT and consumer electronics, which are expected to demand twice as much power by 2022 and three times as much by 2030 - creating a need for another 280 gigawatts of power generation (i.e. like adding another Japan to the world, or more than 230 nuclear reactors). "This will jeopardize efforts to increase energy security and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases," according to an IEA news brief.

"Each month we ask personnel working in the electronics industry their opinions on business conditions now and in six months from now. People from all over the world respond to this survey."

"According to Sunderland and Davis, the benefits of combining thermally conductive Makrolon® TC8030 polycarbonate with polyurethane encapsulation technology utilizing Bayflex® polyurethane reaction injection molding (RIM) technology include: reducing the bill of materials increasing manufacturing flexibility, and reducing the weight for many electronic components"

"and pulsed power and the market is expected to grow over the next five years to support the global megatrend toward improving energy efficiency in power electronics. "

The way electric power is generated and distributed will change substantially over the next two decades. Power will be democratized, as small-scale production at the individual and community level moves from niche to normal. The resulting "electron-democracy" will still have centralized power plants, but power grid activity will increasingly be dominated by innumerable incremental energy flows between small producers and consumers. This is likely to happen whether or not public policy mandates a shift away from dependence on fossil fuels.

According to Environmental Leader, via the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), thirty-three percent of consumers plan to buy greener gadgets over the next two years.

The aim of this project, known as Sormen, is to develop a technology for the separation of scrap metal from electronic waste based on a multispectral vision system and incorporate it into a recycling plant. This new machine overcomes the limitations of current, essentially manual, methods that are labour-intensive and time-consuming, and which are unable to separate metals whose characteristics of colour, shape and weight are similar.