Monthly Archives: August 2018

Shocker at Sanmina

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Jure Sola spent 26 years atop Sanmina as chairman, president and eventually CEO. His replacement lasted less than 12 months.

In a stunning announcement, Sanmina today announced the resignation of Bob Eulau as chief executive. The move is effective immediately.

Eulau was handpicked to replace Sola as chief executive of Sanmina, a move that took effect last October. At the time, Sola gushed over his successor’s abilities, stating “Bob has a deep understanding of Sanmina’s strategy, customer focus, technology offerings and day-to-day execution. I am confident we’ve selected a strong leader. Bob’s wealth of experience and strong leadership are invaluable to the strategic direction of Sanmina and are precisely what Sanmina needs for a successful future.”

What changed in a year? Often, quick changes like this are tied to financial issues or disagreements with the board over direction. Sanmina was quick to reaffirm financial guidance for its current quarter, and is on pace to surpass last fiscal year’s revenue total. At the low end of guidance, the EMS firm will top $7.1 billion, about 3% more than the prior fiscal year. In its most recent earnings call, Eulau forecast increasing margins and yield improvements.

Michael Clarke, another Sanmina alum and a current board member, will take over come Oct. 1.

PCB Chat: Flexible Circuits

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We have a new podcast available, this one with Mark Finstad and Nick Koop. Alert readers will recognize them as the authors of our popular “Flexperts” column on flexible circuit design and manufacturing. They discuss real-life flex circuit struggles and how to overcome them in this week’s chat.

Also, listeners who want to learn more about flex circuit design and manufacturing are encouraged to come listen to Mark and Nick on Thursday, Sept. 13, from 9-11 at the Santa Clara Convention Center during PCB West.

 

PCB Chat: California Prop 65, RoHS, and REACH with Brenda Baney

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Brenda Baney has been addressing product environmental regulations for over 20 years.  She began with General Motors as a materials engineer, where she was at the forefront of the automotive industries material compliance reporting.  Brenda has led internal company projects on elimination of CFCs, lead solder, hexavalent chromium, and a myriad of other substances of concern. She has been a leader within both automotive and electronics industry groups covering topics like ionic cleanliness of printed circuit boards, lead-free solder, End-of-Life Vehicle, RoHS and REACH compliance, and is considered a supply chain expert for material content reporting.

Baney was the Product Stewardship Manager for Delphi, where she led the reporting of complex material compliance data on hundreds of thousands of parts successfully. She also created an internal Conflict Minerals cross-functional team leading Delphi to be named as the Number One automotive component supplier in the 2015 Assent Conflict Minerals rating.

In March 2016, Baney founded B Cubed Consulting, where she works with automotive & other durable goods suppliers to keep strategies on course and stay up-to-date on the latest negotiations between industry and global government enforcement bodies.

She speaks about the new latest amendment to California Prop 65, plus REACH, RoHS and other related regulation issues with Mike Buetow on our latest edition of PCB Chat.

Will US Tariffs Accelerate ‘One China?’

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Asian media are reporting that major Taiwanese ODMs are looking into relocating some production to the island as means to sidestep the US tariffs on imports from China.

DigiTimes reported today that Quanta Computer and Wiwynn are among those looking to avoid new duties on server-use motherboards, which represent a major product line for both ODMs.

Quanta builds server motherboards in Shanghai, then performs final assembly in Nashville, TN, and Fremont, CA, and Wurselen, Germany. Executives say the company might expand production outside China to make up for any domestic reduction.

Wiwynn, which is part of Wistron, also has production in China. It performs performs final assembly in Mexico.

Question: With China increasingly flexing its authority over Taiwan, will moves by companies in the critical technology space accelerate or exacerbate Chinese claims to Taiwan?