Cor Scholten, CEO of Assembleon, cuts an impressive figure – as a physical presence and also in his frank admission that “business is at a low”. Pain and suffering is the order of the day. In Europe, Scholten sees “a bit of trembling” towards recovery. Only Asia, particularly mainland China with high-volume fabs, make the grade “good”. Accordingly, he speaks of modifying business strategies. Assembleon, too, must become more of an agent and partner of its clients and less a mere supplier of equipment.
Speaking of this: the company’s A series, introduced in the U.S. at Apex back in April, will now see the light of Europe at Productronica. Conceived as a highly sophisticated parallel-placement platform evolved from the chip shooter FCM and the fine-pitch placer ACM, it aims at uncompromising “true modularity and flexibility” for throughputs ranging from 30,000 up to 100,000 cph (in increments of 5,000 components per hour). Assembleon calls this “capacity demand” – for scaling output and application up and down without either over nor under-investing in production resources.
This series, says Ton Cornelissen, director of the Regional Center Europe, anticipates the principle of platform designs best: it is highly scalable, works with just one software and uses only one human interface. With this, Europe has “new chances for defining the placement markets” – as Japanese vendors did some 10 or 15 years ago. The company’s goal during Scholten’s term: to be among the top three global players. Now it is reportedly number four, holding a worldwide market share of 15 %.
The platform comes in three modular units: the AX-3 (three frame segments), the AX-5 (five segments), providing a PCB transport and prepared for the addition of placement robots. Each frame supports a number of modular plug-and-play interfaces to pick-and-place robots that offer capacity expansion. The third version, the AQ1, can be configured to place all advanced packages, ìBGAs, CSPs, flip chips and even odd-form parts. Z-axis servo control ensures appropriate placement force at each frame segment in every situation. Accuracy comes at ±75, 50 or 25 µm, respectively, at 4-sigma. A twin-tape feeder accommodates two 8 mm tapes in a single slot, and the machine handles in one set-up more than 300 part numbers in total. Flexibility also applies in terms of handling very small boards. In 2005, Scholten hopes to generate $400 m in revenue with these machines.
To stay on track, helped along by mother Philips, Assembleon is pursuing several partnerships. The one with Yamaha, Scholten says, works very well. The other one, with Speedline/Cookson, established in 1999, is a different matter, since Speedline is up for grabs. So far, nobody panics about this at Assembleon. Scholten states: “We are continuing the alliance.” And, don’t forget: there was also an agreement with GenRad, which has in the meantime become part of Teradyne Assembly Test. This seems to be not discussed at the moment. At Productronica time, some contours might become clearer.
Werner Schulz/gbw
EPP EUROPE 405
Productronica Hall A4/179
Assembleon’s Cornelius Scholten: a bit of trembling towards business recovery
Share:
