12/29/2022
The Newest Member of the Delta Family, Universal Instruments, Pioneers in Precision Automation Solutions
Universal Instruments has recently become the newest member of the Delta Electronics’ family. Offering potential synergies with sister business units, Universal Instruments will be a new growth engine for Delta’s Industrial Automation Business Group (IABG) to tackle the precision automation field with collective product and service offerings.
As a global leader in precision automation solutions for smart manufacturing, engineering and innovation are part of the Universal Instruments’ DNA and have been for the past 103 years. It started in 1919 and transitioned to a machining and tool-and-die business from industrial safety pins manufacturing. It entered the electronics assembly equipment manufacturing industry as a strategic partner to IBM and produced the first semi-automatic component insertion machine in the late 1950s. Since then, Universal Instruments has been leading the way in electronics assembly as a technology leader in designing and manufacturing precision automation solutions for the semiconductor and electronics industry. It enables its customers to build everything from electric appliances, smart devices and cell phones to high-end systems such as servers, automobiles, satellites, milo-aero applications, and renewable energy products.
Moreover, Universal Instruments has strong strategic partnerships with today’s industry leaders to stay on the leading edge of technology trends and deliver excellent solutions for producing a variety of complex electronic circuits. It offers a broad range of world-class equipment and services for a wide range of high-precision assembly needs, including Precision Automation applications requiring versatile, high-accuracy, high-speed handling, inspection, and assembly; Advanced Packaging for applications requiring efficient and versatile multi-die high-accuracy assembly; and traditional to complex Printed Circuit Board Assembly for applications requiring high-speed, high-accuracy surface mount placement and through-hole component insertion. Its versatile automation and assembly platforms handle items from the smallest semiconductor die to the most complex and even the heaviest components with ease, accuracy, and speed.
To help customers build better, Universal Instruments leverages its years of experience and applications knowledge coupled with a broad technology portfolio, and provides the following precision automation solutions:
The platform can be configured with up to four FZ30™ or FZ7TM placement heads. The system can uniquely place the full range of SMD components from 0201 (metric) which are smaller than the size of a grain of sand (0.2 cm x 0.1 cm), all the way up to 40mm x 150mm connectors. Offering the highest number of feeders per floor space area, Fuzion is ideal for high mix factories and high part count complex assemblies.
With its superior vision system, the platform excels at the placement of both press-fit components and pin-through-hole (PTH). The FuzionOF vision system inspects 100% of the pins, including the inner and outer pin arrays, enabling accurate connector alignment and very high-speed placement of both PTH and press-fit components.
The Uflex features a unique multi-process module design and an open work surface area. With pneumatic grippers, it can easily pick and place tall and heavy components weighing over 0.45 kg. Uflex can be reconfigured to handle various manufacturing tasks, including dispensing, label placement, screw driving, and more, making it ideal for back-end manufacturing assembly tasks.
The FuzionSC is ideal for advanced semiconductor packaging assembly or the accurate placement of semiconductor die picked from a wafer. The accurate and economical placement of die is crucial for many aspects in daily life and will become even more important with the coming revolution of AI, 5G, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and Industry 4.0. In addition to die placement, FuzionSC has the unique ability to place high-accuracy active and passive components on any substrate. This flexibility coupled with the speed of the Fuzion platform make FuzionSC an adaptable solution for advanced packaging challenges.
- High-Speed Wafer Feeder (HSWF)
The HSWF is the ultimate multi-die solution for Heterogeneous Integration (HI) and efficient multi-die assembly combined with the FuzionSC. HI is an advanced packaging technology that enables the integration of separately manufactured components (die) into a higher level assembly, which provides enhanced functionality and improved operating characteristics. The HSWF features several unique design elements, including a wafer expander allowing for different wafer sizes to be pre-stretched and stored and an integrated die ejector for rapid picking. Along with the inherent accuracy of Fuzion’s vision system, the system is capable of various applications requiring advanced packaging technology, including 2.5D SiP for high-performance computing, complex multi-die SiP for mobile, wearables, IoT, and others.
The Universal Instruments equipment portfolio is complemented by the cutting-edge IQ360 Factory Software Suite, which delivers tools to improve operational efficiency. IQ360 provides real-time, actionable data through a suite of a la carte intelligent factory modules designed to control, monitor, and improve all aspects of factory operations for maximum productivity. The Advanced Process Lab (APL) offers solutions for all aspects of a product lifecycle, from prototyping, process development, and analytical services to advanced technology assembly. The APL also plays a leading role in the greater electronics community, organizing a research consortium and building partnerships with academic and industry experts to identify and develop new and emerging technologies that will take electronic assembly far into the future.
Universal Instruments is committed to creating pioneering solutions for all aspects of electronics assembly and to maximizing customers’ return on investment across the entire product lifecycle. As a new member of Delta’s IABG, Universal Instruments looks forward to building a smarter future for the electronics industry together with the Delta team.
To see a glimpse of the Universal Instruments technology in action, please visit: https://www.uic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/UIC-Tech_short.mp4. For more about Universal Instruments, please visit: https://www.uic.com/.