Solectron Completes Purchase of IBM's Electronic Card Assembly and Test Operations

Solectron has completed its acquisition of IBM's Electronic Card Assembly and Test (ECAT) operations (Charlotte, NC). Financial details related to the transaction were not disclosed. Solectron originally announced its intent to purchase the IBM ECAT operations on May 12, 1998.

Solectron will provide printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) manufacturing services to IBM in North America for the next three years. These services will be primarily for logic and networking adapter cards used in a number of IBM's high-end, midrange and personal computing products.

As a result of the acquisition, Solectron will merge the IBM ECAT facility into its current Charlotte operation. The combined operation will offer 32 surface mount technology lines, provide 670,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity and employ more than 2,050 associates. The Charlotte facility will serve as Solectron's East Coast center for medium-to-high-volume PCBA.

As a result of the ECAT acquisition, Solectron is gaining access to 115 patents and 51 disclosures from IBM covering a wide spectrum of technologies and capabilities. These include die bonding and encapsulation, flip chip attachment, testing of IC and manufacturing processes including interconnect metallurgies, assembly equipment design and systems, test fixturing and boundary scan methods. In addition to the intellectual property, Solectron is gaining failure analysis and characterization tools for process development and manufacturing including fault detection and isolation.