Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Market News

News

SMT Resource Group LLC (Wake Forest, NC), a reseller and integrator of new and refurbished electronics assembly equipment, has purchased the manufacturing equipment from 3Com's plant in Ireland. SMT Resource assisted 3Com earlier in the asset disposition when their Singapore and Santa Clara, CA, plants closed and production was outsourced.

The agreement covers 50 surface-mount technology machines plus testers and supporting boxbuild equipment. Warehousing and shipping equipment is also available for sale. SMT Resource expects to sell most equipment by early summer. Earliest sales have been to established customers in Asia and North America, with some interest from Europe, especially for non-surface-mount technology equipment such as forklifts and storage racking.

SMT Resource has over 100 major pieces of equipment in inventory. Additionally, the company has sold 200 machines during the past 12 months. SMT Resource will sell, integrate and provide support and service for both new and refurbished electronics assembly equipment to achieve best in class selection for their customers.

SMT Spares specializes in spare parts not readily available from Panasonic and Fuji, especially for three- to ten-year-old machines. More spares are being added to the inventory weekly.

www.smtresource.com

National Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA) has announced that it will offer lead-free packages for its complete line of integrated circuit (IC) products by the end of 2004. The company also will significantly reduce bromine and antimony-based flame-retardants in an effort to make more environmentally neutral electronic components.

Today, approximately 90% of National's portfolio of 15,000 analog and mixed-signal ICs is available in lead-free package types. Lead was formerly used in the plating finish of copper leadframe-based packages. It was also used in the solder balls of array packages such as micro surface mount device (SMD), PBGA and FBGA packages. National will replace the lead in leadframe packages with a matte tin finish and in the solder balls with a tin-silver-copper alloy. Once this aggressive program is fully implemented, National expects to replace approximately five tons of lead used per year.

"Samsung is currently using about one-half dozen different lead-free ICs from National Semiconductor in its flat panel display (FPD) products which are sold worldwide," said Soo Kyung Yoo, vice president Quality Team, Display Device Center, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. "In addition, we have aggressive plans in place to adopt National's lead-free ICs for use in a wide variety of other Samsung products."

Packaging is a critical part of the semiconductor manufacturing process. National's advanced package technologies enable its customers to build cell phones, displays, computers and many other electronic products that are small, thin, lightweight and have long-lasting battery life.

www.national.com/packaging/leadfree/

ASAT Holdings Ltd (Hong Kong, China) and ASAT Inc., global providers of semiconductor package design, assembly and test, has announced that it has been recognized with the SigmaTel (Pleasanton, CA) 2003 Assembly and Test Supplier of the Year Award.

ASAT was recognized for providing outstanding performance, on-time delivery, superior quality and continued support of the development of all of SigmaTel's product lines. ASAT has been providing assembly, test and package design services to SigmaTel for more than three years.

"ASAT has had a positive impact on our ability to rapidly ramp our products into high volume and deploy them more efficiently," said Steve Beatty, vice president of operations at SigmaTel, Inc. "ASAT's focus on continuous improvement in all aspects of its business has allowed us to consistently deliver quality products to our customers."

www.asat.com

Nu Visions Manufacturing LLC (Springfield, MA), a provider of electronics manufacturing in the Northeast, has increased production capacity for producing printed circuit boards (PCB). Responding to increased demand for populated PC board products, Nu Visions purchased four additional lines of Juki Automation pick-and-place machines in late 2003. Recently, Nu Visions added another high-speed placement line composed of Juki's KE-2060 and the new FX-1 machines for a total of 19 machines configured in eight lines. Nu Visions is the first manufacturer in the Americas to purchase the new FX-1 model.

Nu Visions specializes in low-volume, medium-to-high mix PCB manufacturing, partnering with customers from product design and concept through volume manufacturing. Purchasing Juki's equipment allowed Nu Visions to retrofit existing lines with updated trolley feeders that increase the speed of feeding parts.

The new KE-2060 is a hybrid machine, combining a high-speed chip shooter that places a wide range of components at 12,500 CPH with a fine-pitch placement machine that places 1,850 fine-pitch components per hour. It is quickly programmable and has a dual component recognition system with both vision and laser technology.

The FX-1 is a high-speed placement machine capable of 25,000 components per hour. The design structure of a dual head on a single x beam design contributes to the overall placement speed of this machine; one head picks components while the other head places them.

Nu Visions aims to provide small company flexibility and responsiveness with large company technical depth and manufacturing capabilities. Its growth during the last four years has been largely due to their ability to provide better service and offer strong surface-mount technology assembly capabilities. Some of these capabilities include: single and double-sided component populated assemblies, selective wave soldering, placing fine-pitch quad flat packs (QFPs) and connectors, plastic, tape, and ceramic ball grid arrays (BGAs), micro BGAs, high pin count interconnects, and high I/O BGAs.

www.nvems.com

Pro-mation Inc. (Kenosha, WI), a manufacturer of printed circuit board (PCB) handling solutions, has completed a 24-month performance study on 20 select PCB handling products.

Gary Goldberg, president and chief executive officer of Pro-mation, will share this informative information with industry professionals who are interested in PCB handling equipment.

For more information about the study, contact Goldberg: gary_goldberg@pro-mation-inc.com.

www.pro-mation-inc.com

Hardmeier Electronics, a major contract manufacturer in Switzerland, has replaced its complete surface-mount assembly line with the new Ultraflex line from ESSEMTEC. The line is capable of running larger batches in inline mode, but runs different boards simultaneously.

Hardmeier specializes in the assembly of small- to mid-size batches, so the new machines provide them with the possibility to run large series with high speed on some days, while on other days several small batches can be produced simultaneously.

The feeder concept with bar code scanning ensures placement quality and enables product changeovers while the machine is placing boards. The FLX1020-V holds up to 200 feeders and minimizes the need for feeder changes. Laser and vision centering gives customers the possibility to place nearly all available components from 0201s up to quad flat packs (QFPs), ball grid arrays (BGAs), microBGAs and connectors. The integrated software optimizes the feeder set up to eliminate unnecessary changeovers in production. The integrated dispensing system dispenses directly on the same line adhesives or solder paste for prototypes or smaller batches.

In combination with specialized loader/unloader systems, a FIFO Buffer, inspection conveyor and full convection oven for lead-free production, the installation is a fully automatic solution for low-to mid-size volumes.

www.hardmeier-electronics.ch

www.essemtec.com