The Japanese manufacturer of high speed AOI systems is going to set up a new European support centre in the Munich area. This will happen in the second quarter of 2007. Christian Brozinski, former International Sales Manager of Blakell Europlacer and General Manger of EKRA France, will be running this strategic headquarters. After 13 years of French exile, Brozinski is coming back to his Bavarian roots. SAKI Corp was founded in 1994 in Tokyo. Sakie (Jodie) Akiyama is CEO of SAKI Corp. In 2005 she was elected ‚CEO of the year‘ in Japan. Sakie Akiyama was the first woman and the youngest person to ever gain this prestigious title.
The manufacturer’s first customer was Sony in Tokyo. Sony needed an AOI for their high speed SMD manufacturing lines which could realise a 100 % solder joint inspection of a complete SMD board in 20 seconds. Instead of scanning and comparing a good (golden) board with a production board, the AOI machine was capable of analysing each solder joint with dedicated algorithms. With this method, combining the advantages of traditional x-, y-systems and scanners, the company raised AOI to a new performance level. For the first time an AOI could be faster than an in-line screen printer, achieving practically zero false calls. Today there are about 20 SAKI AOI’s in the Tokyo Sony plant. Since this time the manufacturer has been growing tremendously. Following a global strategy it founded subsidiaries in China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, USA and Mexico. “With our European headquarters we want to get closer contact to our customers and our sales partners,” says Christian Brozinski. “First class technical support is our highest priority. Within this year we will employ four engineers for service, sales and technical sales support. Furthermore we will create a support centre in Eastern Europe for our key account customers.”
Today the enterprise offers a complete range of in-line and stand-alone AOI systems. Tristar is the flagship with reportedly the highest inspection speed in the market. Thanks to its sophisticated camera system, it can check the top and bottom side of an SMD board in one go. Tact time is 20 sec at a resolution of 10 µm.
BF Frontier has been designed for PCB up to 460 mm to 500 mm. Tact time is also 20 sec for the maximum board size. Even faster is BF Planet which can check a 250 mm x 330 mm board in 12 sec. BF Voyager is a stand alone AOI for boards up to 460 mm x 500 mm. This AOI is ideal for small and medium series with lots of board changes. The advanced linear camera technology and the algorithm based programming software is the same in all the manufacturer’s machines. “This year we had our own SAKI Europe booth at the SMT Show in Nuremberg for the first time,” explains Brozinski. “As a premiere in Europe, we showed our new 3D solder paste inspection machine SPIder and many other machines of the SAKI range.”
EPP Europe 401
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