IPC. New IPC council formed

IPC has formed a new management council for the leadership of the global solder manufacturing industry. Called IPC Solder Products Value Council (SPVC),the new council was established with the goal of creating programs to benefit both solder manufacturers and their customers.

"One need only look at the challenges of lead-free solder to understand the importance of solder to the electronics industry supply chain," said Peter Palmer, Alpha Metals' vice president of Global Marketing. "By working together in a council within IPC, we can create programs such as market research or standardization that we could never do alone."

The SPVC held a formative meeting in August of 2001. During IPC SMEMA Council APEX in January, the Council met again to outline the objectives of its four subcommittees: Market Research, Lead-Free, Cooperative Buying and Industry Awareness. The Council's Market Research subcommittee, led by David Thorp,Kester Solder, plans to launch a statistical program for solder manufacturers in 2002.

The goal of the Lead-Free subcommittee, chaired by Karl Seelig, AIM vice president of Technology, is to "resolve the confusion regarding alloy choice and is devoted to achieving a world- wide consensus on the issue."

Chairman of the Cooperative Buying Sub- committee Rick Short, Indium, said his sub- committee's intentions are to explore cooperative buying efforts for solder manufacturers.

Finally, the Industry Awareness Subcommittee, chaired by Palmer, intends to investigate programs like Web-based Electronic Data Interchange; a Solder Alloys Database; TRI-Environmental Requirements and support and participation in IPC's Lead-Free Conference.

For more information about the Solder Products Value Council, contact Tony Hilvers, IPC vice president of Industry Programs, at AnthonyHilvers@ipc.org or 847-790-5337.