News
FEINFOCUS (Stamford, CT), a manufacturer of x-ray inspection systems and tubes, and GOEPEL electronic (Jena, Germany), a vendor of electronic and optical test and inspection systems, have combined their 30 years of test and inspection experience with a recent technology partnership.
The new cooperation and development project has resulted in the launch of the OptiCon X-Line inspection system, which was unveiled at Productronica 2003. The new system combines automated optical inspection (AOI) and x-ray inspection technology for the automated analysis of hidden solder joints.
The system, based on the OptiCon series from GOEPEL, provides automatic recognition of shorts and solder bridges, as well as missing solder balls on ball grid array (BGA) and microBGA devices. FEINFOCUS contributed to the development of the system with x-ray tube technology that was implemented according to GOEPEL's specifications. The companies will publish joint technical papers and application findings through the use of the combined technologies.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
Three-Five Systems Inc. (TFS, Tempe, AZ), has hired key employees and acquired the customer base of Integrex Inc. (Bothell, WA), a privately-held electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company. TFS will immediately begin working with customers to transfer existing programs from Bothell to the Redmond facility; the process is expected to take approximately six weeks.
The agreement is the second EMS transaction by TFS in the Northwest in the past 15 months. TFS acquired the EMS company ETMA (Redmond, WA) in December 2002 and maintains operations in the Redmond location.
Integrex was founded in 1999 as a full-service EMS company providing turnkey manufacturing services, including design, new product introduction (NPI), printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), system integration, test and after-market support. Primary investors included Benaroya Capital, Fluke Venture Partners and Sunrise Capital. Representatives for the investor group indicated that several companies competed to obtain the Integrex business and TFS was selected because of its existing presence within the Northwest regional customer community, combined with strong offshore manufacturing capability and a solid balance sheet.
Jack Saltich, chief executive officer of TFS, said, "Integrex has penetrated certain market segments, including military applications, that represent target growth areas for TFS. We believe we can expand upon this business by leveraging our manufacturing quality in Redmond with our high volume efficiencies at our Asian manufacturing locations and thereby continue our initiative to become a dominant EMS provider in the Northwest."
TFS is buying the raw material inventory of Integrex as needed to begin manufacturing products for its new customers and is providing Integrex with an up-front, one-time payment to offset customer transfer costs. TFS is not acquiring Integrex's manufacturing facility in Bothell, and it is not expected that the transaction will generate a goodwill asset for TFS.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
The Surface-Mount Technology Association (SMTA, Minneapolis, MN) has announced the formation of the SMTA International (SMTAI) technical committee for 2004. The SMTA will again co-locate its SMTAI conference on Sept. 26-30 with Assembly Tech Expo (ATExpo) in Chicago, IL, at the Donald Stephens Convention Center.
The 2004 team of industry professionals includes Gerry Adams; Donald Banks; Dr. Srinivas Chada; Dr. John Evans; Gail Flower; Rich Freiberger; Dr. Reza Ghaffarian; Dr. Ken Gilleo; Steve Greathouse; Lisa Hamburg-Bastin; Jeff Kennedy; Andrew Mawer; Dr. Julian Partridge; Dr. Viswanadham Puligandla; Greg Reed; and Dr. Paul Vianco.
They will be led by veteran conference chair, RadiSys process engineering manager Rob Rowland. Rowland is the primary author of Applied Surface Mount Assembly, and he has conducted classes for the SMTA Academy and the SMTA annual conferences at SMI and SMTAI.
Tracks for this year's conference include Assembly, Business Issues, Components, Emerging Technologies, PCB Technology and Process Control. New topics for 2004 include Design for Success, Battery Interaction, Lean Manufacturing, Medical Electronics, Setup Reduction, Process Modeling and Supplier Engineering.
Copyright 2004, UP Media Group. All rights reserved.
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