COMMENTS
Rich. Great to read your post. What could be a great read is for you to recall each time your dad would say something like, "goshdarned wirebonders" around the house.
The economics regarding how much a wire bonder costs has really changed over the last few years.
I'm seeing relics like the 2460-II being advertised for under $20K. You can't buy a new manual bonder for those kind of bucks these days if my research is correct.
I also see the price of a new bonder being in the $100-150K range.
At what point do you see the price point of a new bonder being a better business decision?
Thanks for the comment Chuck. The economics of the wire bonder have remained relatively the same over the last few years. The cost to manufacturer and the customer purchase price has remained relatively flat. This has been a great benefit to our customers for a few reasons:
1) Wire Bonder prices have not gone up in price along with inflation, thus the customer is getting the wire bonder at a "cheaper" price
2) Palomar now bundles software with their systems, thus creating more value for the customer over the long run
3) Palomar customer support remains the best in the business - bonders are the not the type of products you can buy off the shelf and "drive away". Support is essential and we do it better than anyone.
With that said, one could argue that the in actual cost, the number is the same, but in value over time, it is certainly cheaper for the customer.
In regards to your point about seeing 2460-II Wedge Bonders on the market at the $20K price point, keep in mind that those aren't supported by Palomar. We do offer warranty and inspection services for bonder owners who want support service. It's important to note though that we do inspect the bonder first to make sure that it is serviceable. The downside of purchasing from a 3rd party is that there are no guarantees in regards to reliability, functionality, etc. It's that old axiom "you get what you pay for". You can visit http://palomartechnologies.com/SystemsSolutions/RefurbishedUsedSystems.aspx for more information on 3rd Party Equipment support information.
To answer your last question, Palomar's experience has been that the real question is "when does it make sense to transition from contract assembly (Palomar doing the work in house) to purchasing your own system? You can liken to it to going fishing: if you fish only once, it makes sense to rent a fishing pole. But if you are fishing all the time, it will be more cost effective, in the long run, to buy a fishing pole.
In light of the fact that bonding, whether ball, wedge or die, is done either hot or cold I felt the following might be of interest to the technical people.
HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a Washington University chemistry mid term. The answer by one student was so 'profound', that the professor shared it with his colleagues via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas
cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we
need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at
which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets
to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only
Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting, 'Oh my God.'
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.
When I got to thinking about your blog question it started me to thinking back to my early days selling for Hughes and where wire bonders evolved from, which would have been several years before the blue bonders.
We're talking about between 1970 and 1980. The microelectronic activity at Hughes was at HAC Newport Beach. In fact, during those early days they manufactured their own breed of aluminum wedge bonders.
After the invention of the transistor each manufacturer created their own equipment in their back rooms. It was about the time I came onto the scene in 1969 that concept was abandoned and many of those who were active in machine creation started their own companies to make equipment that was commercially available. I remember at least a dozen guys up here who were from the Fairchild group.
I'll see what I can remember that is worthy of posting. Wire bonders for Hughes in those early days were not a big deal. What we were selling were the resistance welding machines that had earlier been developed to weld the filaments in vacuum tubes. In fact, the Hughes Division at that time was known as the Vacuum Tube Products Division and was located in a Quanset Hut at 2020 Oceanside Blvd in Oceanside.
The MCW-550 power supply was a technological leap forward for microelectronic assembly, and was originally created to eliminate the use of solder and flux when soldering leads to traces on a printed circuit board. The initial challenge, according to those I mingled with, was the inability to completely de-active the flux used in the soldering process, and if the electronics were to go either into space or the ocean the use of flux was not allowed. This is where parallel gap welding came into play, and the MCW-550 was able to deliver a controllable weld pulse that compensated for most of the inconsistencies in the printed circuit board plating process plus surface mount at that time was to bend the leads of a 14 or 16 lead dual inline package so that it could be mounted a multilayer board.
It was this same power supply that created the opportunity for Hughes to enter the wire bonding market with a unique offering.
944am on Thursday, May 28, '09,
I'm learning a lot about blogs following one hosted by an 86 year old Newsie from the Boston Area. While he's been retired and has relocated to warmer climes he still has that warm and fuzzy feeling that he's still in the community in which he spent so many years.
Same here.
What's sad to me is to see where things in the microelectronic arena have landed after almost 40 years.
The net result is fewer products, fewer customers and fewer jobs to absorb the vast amount of talent each new generation brings.
Chuck