The annual IPC Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and the Designers Summit is being held this year April 1st - 3rd at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, a city famous for its lavish casino resorts, lush hotels and legendary shows. Designed by and for the electronics manufacturing industry, it is the perfect event at which to find new technology and suppliers, network with industry experts and educate yourself on the latest research. At its new location (read more)....
The Lowdown
Conference & exhibition: Tuesday – Thursday, April 1-3, 2008 Meetings: March 29 – April 3, 2008 Mandalay Bay Resort & Conference Center, Las Vegas, Nevada Website: http://www.goipcshows.org
Transportation to and from the event Shuttles to Mandalay Bay are available at the airport for $5-7/person. Mandalay Bay is usually the first or last drop off. A free tram runs between the Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay hotels every three to seven minutes—or hop on the Las Vegas Monorail from a number of locations within the city. Check the routes and fares online at www.lvmonorail.com.
Driving yourself? Parking at Mandalay Bay is free.
Nightlife You’re sure to find something to see or do while you’re visiting the city that bills itself as the “entertainment capital of the world.” Browse over to www.visitlasvegas.com to find out what’s going on during your stay and pick up some ‘do’s and don’ts’ tips.
Free Forums
While you’re at the show, take advantage of the free forums, which offer an opportunity to engage with industry experts and peers on a number of important and pressing topics. Here's a list of this year's forum topics. You can get more details on our free APEX forums page.
iNEMI Lead-Free Review
Lead-Free Reliability—Where Are We Now?
Safety in the Electronics Industry
Material Pre-Selection Through a New Database for PCBs at UL
Counterfeit/Trusted “How Do I Know It’s the Real McCoy?”
Best Practices for Exempt Manufacturers in a Lead-Free World
Test And Inspection Summit
Technology Preview
ACE Production Technologies - Booth 335 ACE Production Technologies, Inc. announces the introduction of The KISS-104F in-line fluxer, an intelligent fluxing system that enables the fluxing of only the specific components to be selectively soldered.
Accu-Assembly - Booth 224 Accu-Assembly will feature the new T40-1200-6N baking dry cabinet, designed for storage of moisture-sensitive devices (MSDs). These cabinets meet and exceed the requirements of the IPC and Jedec standard J-Std-033B.
Agilent Technologies - Booth 1735 Agilent will features its Metalist suite of test and inspection systems, breakthrough technologies for solder paste inspection, automated optical inspection, automated x-ray inspection and in-circuit test.
Aqueous Technologies - Booth 2431 Aqueous Technologies Corp. will highlight the Trident, its fourth-generation automatic defluxing system and the fastest batch-format defluxing system available, capable of defluxing and cleanliness testing up to 896 4 x 6" (101 x 152 mm) boards and up to 112 18 x 20" (457 x 508 mm) boards per hour.
Asahi Technologies America - Booth 971 Viromet 347 solder paste is the fruit of Asahi's relentless R&D efforts to create state of the art, high quality, high performance lead-free solder paste. It offers excellent wetting and minimal or no voids.
ASC International - Booth 2264 ASC's VisionMaster M450 & AP450 series of solder paste inspection systems offer the latest technology advancements, including improved data acquisition rates.
BPM Microsystems - Booth 2245 BPM Microsystems will display its latest Flashstream automated programming technology, the 3000FS, designed specifically to solve excessive programming times in current in-system, JTAG and in-circuit programming production methods.
CeTaQ Americas - 1828 CeTaQ Americas will highlight the CmController5 Compact (CmC5 Compact) measurement and analysis tool.
Cobar - Booth 165 Cobar BV, a member of the Balver Zinn Group, announces the introduction of XF3 lead-free solder paste, developed to accommodate extended reflow profiles without the use of nitrogen.
Contact Systems - Booth 675 The advanced C5 series of SMT placers offers 10 models to match any full component range of SMT placement requirements and can implement a number of tray handling options.
CyberOptics - Booth 611 CyberOptics Corporation will showcase its Flex Ultra High-Resolution automated optical inspection (AOI) system, one of the highest-speed inspection systems in the industry and ideal for producing memory, notebook, mobile phone and automotive product.
Datapaq - 1438 The Datapaq Surveyor provides an easy and accurate way to monitor the thermal performance of your reflow oven every hour, day and shift - effortlessly.
ECD - Booth 2216 ECD’s MEGAM.O.L.E.®20 thermal profiler is the first ever with 20 channels and an “OK button” one-touch go/no-go profile validation, and it's 7.2 mm thin!
Essemtec - Booth 501 Essemtec, manufacturer of surface mount technology production equipment, will premiere the PANTERA-XV SMD placement system.
Europlacer - Booth 1624 Europlacer, a designer and manufacturer of comprehensive SMT placement systems for the global electronics industry, announces that it will display its new iineo-II SMT platform.
Everett Charles Technologies - Booth 1383 The Contacts Product Group (CPG) of Everett Charles Technologies (ECT) and atg Test Systems will exhibit LFRE lead-free POGO contacts.
EVS International - Booth 263 EVS International will introduce the EVS 7000 and EVS 9000 solder recovery systems in distributor Sono-Tek’s booth 263.
FCT Solder - Booth 243 FCT Solder invites visitors to bring their lead-free projects and questions to its booth for a SN100C® consultation.
FINE LINE STENCIL - Booth 243 FINE LINE STENCIL, a division of FCT Assembly and manufacturer of stencil products, invites visitors to stop by booth 24 to learn about its recent positive changes in technology.
Finetech - Booth 577 FINETECH will display the Fineplacer® CRS 10 compact rework system.
High Tech Conversions - Booth 2085 High-Tech Conversions Inc., a manufacturer of high-quality wiping products and a supplier of consumable items used in cleanrooms, assembly lines, laboratories and manufacturing, will showcase its new THE AQUAVATORTM stencil wiping fabric.
GPD Global - Booth 700 GPD Global will have two models from its Max Series line, the MicroCell and the MicroMaxII, as well as the tabletop TMax platform on display.
Heller - Booth 2317 Heller's Mark III reflow system features enhanced control of the liquidous time, profile scupting, and ultra-fast cooling rates.
Henkel - Booth 634 To address the emerging requirements of today’s heat generating devices, Henkel has launched its latest thermal product, PowerstrateXtreme™ Dispensable (PSX-D).
Indium Corporation - Booth 747 Indium8.9 Pb-free solder paste,formulated to produce consistent print volumes through apertures below the industry recommended minimum area ratio of 0.66, is an air reflow no-clean solder paste that prints perfectly every time.
Innov-X Systems - Booth 2113 Innov-X Systems' handheld XRF analyzers can detect PPM levels of Pb, Hg, Cd, Cr and BR in seconds and automatically classify mixed or homogenous - alloy or polymer.
Inovaxe - Booth 2270 Inovaxe Corp. will exhibit INOCART-MSD, a true solution for managing moisture sensitive devices (MSD).
Juki - Booth 2025 Juki Corporation will introduce its 350 selective soldering system to the electronics industry.
Kester - Booth 1660 Kester will be featuring numerous products from its Lead-Free Solutions™ (products and services) portfolio to help companies in the transition to lead-free.
KIC - Booth 1977 KIC will highlight the Auto-Focus Power option for reflow ovens and wave solder machines.
Koh Young - 2625 Koh Young Technology's new product aSPIre 3D in-line solder paste inspection system adds more value to your production.
Kyzen Corp - Booth 2219 Kyzen Corporation will exhibit AQUANOX A4625B, an innovative aqueous chemistry designed for optimum effectiveness in batch washers. A4625B is environmentally friendly, has a long tank life and low maintenance cost.
Lambda Americas - Booth 2074 Genesys programmable power supplies now have an optional Ethernet interface, certified to LXI-C. The series is the widest range AC/DC programmable power solution sharing completely identical interfaces.
Mentor Graphics - Booth 1886 Mentor Graphics offers the CAMCAD manufacturing flow that enables the generation of correct, complete and intelligent product descriptions for use in PCB manufacturing.
Microscan Systems - Booth 1965 Quadrus MINI Velocity autofocus imager consistently reads linear bar codes and 2D symbols moving as fast as 100 inches per second, for easy implementation of automatic data tracking on high speed production lines.
MIRTEC - Booth 1857 MIRTEC will introduce its MV series of AOI systems, including the MV-3L desktop, the MV-7L inline, and the MV-2HTU large-board desktop.
Mossman Tebbs - Booth 1908 Mossman Tebbs' PCB tray handlers offer safe handling of boards that cannot be held conventionally, such as odd-shaped boards, flexible boards and boards populated to the edge.
Nihon Superior USA - Booth 249 Nihon Superior’s unique SnCuNiGe solder, SN100C®, that has established itself as the best alloy for lead-free wave soldering, will now be available as a high-performance solder paste with a general purpose “P500” flux medium.
Oak-Mitsui - Booth 1224 Oak-Mitsui technologies provides the premiere embedded capacitor material with the highest available capacitance density (1.7 nF/cm²). FaradFlex® can be used to form discrete capacitors inside your PCB, module or IC package.
Ovation Products - Booth 2471 Ovation Products will introduce its new “Stinger” fluid dispense system, which expands the capabilities of conventional screen printers by enabling the user to dispense SMT adhesive or solder paste on a PCB immediately following the screen print operation.
Pentagon EMS - Booth 1725 Pentagon EMS's metal shop offers all the other parts for your PCB assembly, manufactured from your specifications or Pentagon's design.
Phoenix|x-ray Systems + Services - Booth 2646 Exclusive preview: phoenix|x-ray to introduce breakthrough software platform for CAD-based, fully automated inspection of solder joints (mAXI) at APEX.
Practical Components - Booth 2719 Practical Components, international distributor of mechanical IC samples or “dummy” components and SMD production tools and equipment, will showcase its latest technology.
Precision Placement Machines - Booth 1939 PPM's new ThinPRO electronic tape feeder improves Quad System tape feeder accuracy and performance for placing small parts. The ThinPRO was designed to run 0402, 0201 and 01/0005 components.
Production Solutions - Booth 1882 The Red-E-Set universal board support system has been proven to reduce defects. It improves quality, eliminates component damage and reduces changeover time.
PROMATION - Booth 2271 PROMATION will introduce its latest PCB handling solutions in booth 2271 at this year’s IPC/APEX trade show, Las Vegas, NV.
RMD Instruments - Booth 1563 RMD Instruments LLC will premier new solder analysis and identification features of its innovative LeadTracer-RoHS XRF system designed specifically for the electronics industry to provide fast, accurate and portable screening capability to meet RoHS directives.
Scienscope International - Booth 1462 The cost-efficient Scienscope View X is a full-featured x-ray inspection system with an improved high-resolution 90kV x-ray source and new Capture X Image processing software.
SEHO - Booth 1677 SEHO Systems is contributing a paper, "New Technology to Meet Challenging Reflow Requirements", to the technical conference.
Siemens - Booth 2359 The Siemens SIPLACE X4i placement machine offers speed and flexibility for a wide variety of applications and line concepts.
Smart Sonic - Booth 1664 Smart Sonic will unveil the EnviroGuard™ stencil cleaner, which matches the unique properties of Smart Sonic's 440-R® SMT detergent to a specifically designed filtration/UV system that facilitates 100% closed-looping and zero VOCs of both the wash and rinse solutions.
Sono-Tek - Booth 263 Sono-Tek Corporation will introduce EZ-Flux ultrasonic reciprocating spray fluxing system, an economical ultrasonic spray fluxing system designed on a reciprocating platform that uses a high-impact flux transfer system for maximizing topside fill.
Specialty Coating Systems - Booth 1869 Specialty Coating Systems is pleased to introduce its new SCS Precisioncoat spray coating and dispense system and its new fully articulated RTV system. SCS will also exhibit the SCS Precision IRT cure oven, Ionograph SMD IV ionic contamination test system and the company’s world-leading Parylene coating services and technologies.
Vitronics Soltec - Booth 1825 Customers of Vitronics Soltec’s successful XPM2 reflow system can now get all of the performance and reliability that the system is known for, plus some enhanced features, in the XPM2+.
VJ Electronix - Booth 648 VJ Electronix will introduce its new platform designed to perform a variety of specific tasks for rework and production.
World Equipment Source - Booth 2506 Complete SMT facility up for bid! World Equipment Source is conducting a negotiated sale and bidding-process on behalf of Reliant Manufacturing.
ZESTRON - Booth 2339 Precision cleaning products and services for all required applications in the electronics manufacturing industry.
Zurvahn LLC - Booth 2282 As a contract manufacturer, Zurvahn will display printed circuit boards to highlight its design capabilities.
Cobar - Booth 165
ECD - Booth 2216
Nihon Superior’s unique SnCuNiGe solder, SN100C®, that has established itself as the best alloy for lead-free wave soldering, will now be available as a high-performance solder paste with a general purpose “P500” flux medium. 
Vitronics Soltec - Booth 1825
