Interesting article on passive components. Says, "Today, in some electronic products, 100-to-1 ratios of passive to active components are common. At the same time, prices for many discrete passives are only slighter higher than the cost of raw materials. Conversion costs, meaning the costs to inventory, assemble and test passive components, can be close to 80 percent of the total product cost. These and other factors increase the value of integrated passives, groups of discrete components bundled into one package. "
So, ESI makes equipment to do machine testing of passives vs manual inspection. That's got to have a lot of meaning when margins are so low. Also, they make production faster. Consolidation of the customer base must help them as well as the big boys are now making profits, like Kemet this week, and they will have more money to spend on automation.
It's a thought anyway.
electronicnews.com
By the way, growth rates for passive units is huge.
Regards,
Mark |
