AOI business surviving during downturn
The downturn severely affected at least some sectors of machine vision, including AOI.
By Ann R. Thryft, Contributing Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 3/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
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Last year’s economic downturn had several effects on the makers of AOI (automated optical inspection) equipment. In February 2009, Agilent announced that it was leaving the AOI and AXI (automated x-ray inspection) markets. In its fourth quarter financial statement, Orbotech said it would sell its AOI business aimed at manufacturers of assembled PCBs (printed-circuit boards) in Europe and the Americas, while continuing to support and service its assembled PCB customers in Asia. Some AOI manufacturers speculated that such actions might herald a wave of industry contraction and consolidation (Ref. 1), although that has not occurred.
The downturn severely affected at least some sectors of machine vision, including AOI. But things are looking up again, said Jonathan Lin, VP of international business development for Taiwan-based TRI. “Our business was impacted during the first half of 2009,” he said. “In the second half, we had a pickup in orders from customers in Asia, and business began expanding again overall in the third quarter, although on a very small scale.” The AOI equipment industry lags a few months behind the semiconductor equipment industry, which began increasing capacity in September, he explained. In November, TRI saw significant AOI expenditures from the top five EMS (electronics manufacturing services) companies, and it expects the increase in orders to last into late March or early April of this year.
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“We also refocused our strategy,” said Lin. “Instead of going after global companies, we started pursuing small- and medium-sized customers, which are buying again, since they react much faster to changing conditions.”
TRI also increased its R&D investment last year by about 20% over 2008, said Lin, and designs its systems, such as its latest bare-board AOI system, the TR9000, entirely in-house. One of the biggest demands the company encounters is for reduced cycle times. In particular, large laptop and cellphone OEM manufacturers in China are asking for reductions of 15 to 20%. Although a few high-end, top-tier OEM customers are requesting 3-D capability in AOI systems, there still isn’t much demand from the majority. “We have 3-D technologies available and ready, but we’re not launching any 3-D AOI systems this year,” said Lin. “Only 10 to 15% of our AOI base wants 3-D, compared to a much larger percentage of SPI customers.” One of the main reasons is the fact that a 3-D-equipped AOI system costs about three times that of a non-3-D AOI machine, he said.
During 2010, TRI expects manufacturers to start spending money again on AOI, but it probably won’t be in huge quantities, said Lin. “People are now cautiously optimistic,” he said, and he expects more EMS companies to use AOI in the next year or two, because “everyone is moving to more sophisticated inspection techniques to enhance image quality.”
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