ESI Ships Advanced Laser and Mechanical Drilling Systems to Praegitzer Industries
Portland, Oregon (June 17, 1997) -- Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ - ESIO) announced today that it has recently shipped Praegitzer Industries (NASDAQ - PGTZ) an ESI Model 5100 micro-via laser drilling system and a Dynamotion S.M.A.R.T.Drill? system. These two systems represent state of the art drilling technology for advanced electronic packages.
The Model 5100 provides enabling technology for the manufacture of blind, buried and through-hole micro-vias for small geometry circuit board and semiconductor package applications. The system processes single or multi-layer laminated materials at rates of over 4,000 vias per minute. It features ESI's proprietary, solid state, ultraviolet wavelength laser specifically developed for these applications. The S.M.A.R.T.Drill(TM) system uses patented technology to provide an innovative means to compensate for multi-layer lamination shift and tooling distortion in printed circuit boards. The system automatically calculates necessary correction factors for new tooling holes or subsequent drilling operations. The multi-functional machine can also be used to drill holes relative to detected surface features.
In announcing the shipment, Donald R. VanLuvanee, ESI President and CEO said, "We are pleased that Praegitzer Industries is the first customer to have purchased our two flagship electronic interconnect manufacturing systems. This shipment is ratification of the highly complementary nature of our laser drilling equipment and the mechanical drilling products gained through the recently concluded Dynamotion acquisition. It is evidence of the industries' acceptance of ESI's strategy to provide a complete solution offering to the printed circuit board and electronic packaging market."
Steve Thatcher, Corporate Director of Technology and Strategic Planning for Praegitzer said, "The ESI laser and mechanical drilling system provides Praegitzer with the most advanced and cost-effective micro via and high accuracy drilling systems on the market. These systems will be instrumental in our satisfying the increasingly demanding requirements of our customers for small pad geometries, blind and buried via electrical interconnects. Praegitzer is committed to Dynamotion, due to their many technical innovations and have been purchasing their drilling systems since 1992. We are pleased to see Dynamotion gaining the benefits of ESI resources and size through this acquisition."
About Praegitzer
Praegitzer Industries, Inc. founded in 1981, is a leading design and fabrication service provider of advanced printed circuit boards. Praegitzer has four manufacturing divisions and eleven design centers serving customers in the business systems, computing, instrumentation, medical and telecommunications industries. Praegitzer prides itself on continually improving the quality of its products and services. It is a publicly traded company and employs more than 1,600 people.
About ESI
ESI, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, designs and manufactures sophisticated products used around the world in electronics manufacturing including: laser manufacturing systems for semiconductor yield improvement; production and test equipment for the manufacture of surface mount ceramic capacitors; laser trim systems for precise electrical tuning of circuits; precision micro-via drilling systems; and machine vision systems. |
