Suppliers of assembly and specialist equipment

Citation

(1999), "Suppliers of assembly and specialist equipment", Microelectronics International, Vol. 16 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.1999.21816aab.009

Suppliers of assembly and specialist equipment

Suppliers of assembly and specialist equipment

Keywords Assembly, Awards, Suppliers

In their recent annual survey, VLSI Research Inc. extended warm congratulations to the 1998, 10 BEST suppliers of assembly and specialty equipment. A special commendation goes to ALPHASEM AG, which has retained the grand ranking among all 10 BEST companies for the fourth year in a row.

Ratings in this segment continue to lead those in other industry segments. However, suppliers should not be complacent as this is the only 10 BEST segment in which there has been a decline in the overall average rating. In fact, scores in seven out of eight categories have dropped, and the overall average rating has fallen 0.11 points to 8.21. Equipment performance categories continue to maintain the highest ratings, with quality-of-results at 8.52, followed by product performance at 8.40, and uptime at 8.28. These ratings are substantiated by a multitude of comments praising the robustness and operability of the equipment. Software support is still the lowest rated category, although its average score of 7.78 is impressive.

These 10 BEST winners have received other awards and honors during the past year. ALPHASEM has been honored with a Certificate of Appreciation from Motorola. DISCO has been awarded the 1997 Award for Excellence Marketing by the Japan Marketing Association. Kulicke & Soffa has won the 1997 Editors' Choice Best Product Award from Semiconductor International for its Model 1474 vfp automatic wedge bonder. Fico received the 1997 Supplier of the Year Award from Siemens Singapore and a Certificate of Appreciation from Motorola.

European suppliers have a strong foothold in this segment, representing half of this year's 10 BEST assembly and specialty equipment suppliers. Of the remaining winners, four are based in the USA and one is headquartered in Japan (Table I).

About the surveyThese statistics were drawn from a mailing of 33,191 questionnaires sent worldwide in six languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, and French. Of these, l,631 were in Japanese, 1,739 were in Korean, 2,858 were in German, 1,400 were in French, and 399 were in Chinese. The rest were in English. The survey was double-blind. Equipment vendors supplied the initial name lists, but did not see the returns. VLSI Research obtained the returns, but did not see the source company that initially supplied the respondent's name.

Calculation of the 10 BEST is accomplished by averaging all qualifying results per supplier. In cases where a tie has occurred, the ranking position is determined by a single-sided 97.5 percent confidence margin.

Demographic distribution of the returns was 41.8 percent from North America, 23.1 percent from Europe, 15.8 percent from Japan, 13.1 percent from elsewhere in Asia, 5.2 percent from Korea, and 1.0 percent from other areas of the world.

For more information contact Michelle Ha or Lisa Steele, VLSI Research Inc., San Jose, CA. Tel: (408) 453-8844; Fax: (408) 437-0608.