The 750th Plating line sold – an Atotech Success Story

Citation

(2014), "The 750th Plating line sold – an Atotech Success Story", Circuit World, Vol. 40 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/CW-10-2013-0041

The 750th Plating line sold – an Atotech Success Story

Article Type: Industry news From: Circuit World, Volume 40, Issue 1

Atotech is celebrating the sale of its 750th plater. The jubilee plater is part of a Cu18 IP2, UTS-xs, with right-left process flow direction at 1.5 m/min and will be used for Superfilling, BMV filling processes and conformal plating.

The sale of the 750th plater is yet another highlight in the success story of Atotech, which looks back on over 25 years of innovation, continuous research and development, and a well-expanded worldwide sales and service network.

The first plater, a Uniplate Cu Copper plating Module (Cu3), was sold in 1988 in Germany. In 1989, Uniplate took off, as companies started to buy horizontal systems in Europe. This was followed by the first Uniplate sold overseas, to a customer in Japan, and the subsequent take-off of Uniplate in Asia and Europe, shortly trailed by America.

With the 400th plater sold only ten years later, in 2006, Atotech managed to nearly double this number within only seven years – with its 750th plater sold in 2013!

Atotech’s 750th plater has been sold to Zhen Ding Technology Holding Limited (ZDT), a PCB maker specialising in flexible printed circuits (FPC), high density interconnections (HDI), integrated circuit substrates (ICS), and rigid PCBs (R-PCB). ZDT is one of the biggest manufacturers for electronic products worldwide.

Today, being a truly global company, Atotech delivers its manufacturing systems to all parts of the world, while assuring best local customer service thanks to a well-established sales- and service network and its worldwide TechCenters.

Atotech now has several Uniplate Systems for drill hole cleaning, plating through hole and electrolytic copper plating processes, different conveyor types of Uniplate, and other processes, such as the horizon system for surface treatment and final finishing technology, in its portfolio.

In the future, similar line concepts will be made available for the display industry. Here, horizontal processing lines are needed for the chemical processing of very large and flat glass panels. This includes equipment for the cleaning, conditioning and deposition of conductive layers.

Aspocomp’s Financial Information in 2014

Aspocomp Group Plc will publish its financial information in 2014 as follows: Financial Statements 2013: Thursday, February 27 Annual Report 2013: Thursday, March 13 Interim Report January-March: Thursday, April 24 Interim Report January-June: Thursday, August 7 Interim Report January-September: Thursday, October 23 The Financial Statements and Interim Reports will be released at around 9:00 a.m. on the given dates.

The silent period commences two weeks prior to publication of the interim results and three weeks prior to financial statements.

The Annual General Meeting will take place on Thursday, April 24. The meeting will be convened by the company’s board of directors later on. Shareholders have a right to put on the agenda of the AGM 2014 items that are within the competence of the general meeting. A shareholder must declare his or her demands in writing to Aspocomp Group Plc.’s Board of Directors on Friday, March 7, 2014 at the latest by mail to address Aspocomp Group Plc., Yhtiökokous, Keilaranta 1, 02150 Espoo or by email to: mailto:yhtiokokous@aspocomp.com

AT&S is building 100,000 SF IC substrate plant in Chongqing, China

Austria-based PCB maker AT&S is currently building a new IC substrate plant in Chongqing, China with volume production slated for year-end 2014. The new plant will have a production capacity of 100,000 square feet initially.

Schweizer Electronic Supervisory Board reappointed Board Members Dr Marc Schweizer and Nicolas Schweizer

The Supervisory Board of Schweizer Electronic AG has reappointed Board Members Dr Marc Schweizer and Nicolas Schweizer until 2018. Their contracts were previously ending July 2015 resp. March 2016. Dr Marc Schweizer has been a member of the Executive Board since April 1, 2005 and was appointed CEO in 2007. Nicolas Schweizer is a member of the Executive Board since April 1, 2011.

Based on the growing internationalization of Schweizer Electronic AG, the company announced at the same time organizational changes on board level, effective November 1, 2013. As of this point in time, Nicolas Schweizer, Chief Commercial Officer, and Bernd Schweizer, Chief Operating Officer, will be jointly responsible for the division electronic based in Schramberg, site of the company’s headquarters.

The scope of responsibilities of Marc Bunz, Chief Financial Officer, will remain unchanged. In his current function, he is also accountable for the orchestrating of the Asian and European activities.

In his function as CEO, Dr Marc Schweizer will continue to concentrate on strategic topics and in parallel advance the internationalization of the company, particularly the collaboration with the cooperation partner Meiko Electronics. For this reason he will relocate his regular place of work to Asia in November.

Thus, the board of directors will continue to jointly assume responsibility for the commercial interests of the Schweizer Group, its international sites and the various divisions.

Eltos Acquires Latest Generation Orbotech Sprint™ 120 Inkjet Printer

Eltos S.p.A, has purchased a latest generation Sprint™ 120 inkjet printer for use in its printed circuit board production operation in Arezzo, Italy.

Mr Ricardo Pinamonti, President of Eltos, commented: "Our company mission is to manufacture and supply printed circuit boards with superior quality; therefore, the choice of Orbotech’s Sprint 120 inkjet system, which is the most advanced model on the market, was clear. It gives us the highest quality solution on the market for high mix production with the flexibility to also meet the demands of the wide range of specialty products and materials that we offer to our customers."

Mr Hadar Himmelman, President of Orbotech West, said "Having more than 30 years of experience and success in exporting their PCB products internationally, Eltos is very knowledgeable about what it takes to achieve top results in high mix production environment. We appreciate very much that Eltos chose to advance their process with the newest capabilities of Orbotech’s inkjet technology."

For further information please visit: http://www.eltos.it

John Ling
Carter-Lane Consulting, Malvern, UK