K&S Partners with Nidec Tosok
Online Staff -- EDN, November 11, 2003
K&S has entered into an alliance with Japanese company and fellow die bonder equipment maker Nidec Tosok in order to open up the discrete market for its Nu-Tek bonder.
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. and Nidec Tosok Corp. have agreed to combine products and technologies for high-speed, reel-to-reel packaging of discreet devices, the companies said Monday.
Zama City, Japan-based Nidec Tosok specializes in die bonding equipment for discretes, such as LEDs and transistors. It has particular expertise in high speed, reel-to-reel processing of these components, according to Willow Grove, Pa.-based K&S.
By partnering with Nidec Tosok, K&S hopes to open the discrete reel-to-reel packaging market for its Nu-Tek bonder. Based on its ultra fine pitch wire bonder Maxum, Nu-Tek debuted early this year and added low I/O packages in strip and lead frame format to Maxum's bonding capabilities.
"We were very interested in entering a potentially new market," Christian Rheault, VP of K&S' wire bonder product group, said in a statement. "With assistance from Tosok, K&S is able to leverage our advanced technology and design equipment for integration by our partner that will allow us both to be leaders in this market," she said. "There are many synergies to be realized by doing this."
The two companies first established a relationship in 1965 with a technical agreement, and have continued to partner on various projects throughout the years, according to K&S. The company will now make a configuration of Nu-Tek specifically adapted for reel-to-reel discrete devices exclusively for Nidec Tosok. Tosok in turn will mate K&S' Nu-Tek reel-to-reel configuration with its own die bonder in various custom configurations.
The resulting system will be capable of processing more than 22,000 devices per hour, K&S said. Nidec Tosok will sell, market, and service the die attach - wire bonding integrated systems under the terms of the alliance.
