MKS Instruments, Inc. has announced a multi-system order from one of China’s leading flex PCB manufacturers for the recently-released ESI CapStone laser drilling solution for flexible printed circuits (FPC). The order—in double digit quantity—is the result of thorough system evaluation at one of the customer’s facilities in China.

“With a large installation base of the ESI Model 5335 systems at their various production locations, the customer has established a leadership position in the flexible printed circuit manufacturing market,” according to Kevin Yuan, Country Manager for ESI China. “After rigorous on-site production evaluation, they determined that CapStone delivers the highest productivity available, while meeting their technology requirements for the foreseeable future. In doing so, they found they could minimize their processing costs while reducing their factory footprint and operator hiring and training requirements. As a result, they decided to choose CapStone for their latest round of flexible circuit drilling capital investment.”

“We’re pleased to see such rapid market acceptance of the ESI CapStone system,” said John Williams, vice president of marketing for ESI Products. “The flex circuit laser drilling market should be boosted over time by the latest design and technology changes in the consumer electronics market, ranging from high-frequency materials for 5G phones to increased layer counts for higher signal density. The CapStone system was developed with these market trends in mind, capitalizing on the newest laser and beam positioning technologies to deliver significant throughput increases while maintaining high yield. Cost-driven competition in the printed circuit board (PCB) processing industry makes the CapStone system’s high productivity value proposition very compelling.”

The ESI brand represents an innovator in laser-based manufacturing solutions for the micro-machining and micro-electronic industries, and the CapStone system is optimized for the flexible printed circuits widely used in consumer electronics, such as smartphones and other handheld devices. The system delivers the highest productivity available, while maintaining high levels of accuracy and precision in critical parameters such as via diameter and placement.

CapStone systems are available now, either directly from ESI or through ESI channel partners world-wide.

About MKS Instruments

MKS Instruments, Inc. is a global provider of instruments, subsystems and process control solutions that measure, monitor, deliver, analyze, power and control critical parameters of advanced manufacturing processes to improve process performance and productivity for our customers. Our products are derived from our core competencies in pressure measurement and control, flow measurement and control, gas and vapor delivery, gas composition analysis, residual gas analysis, leak detection, control technology, ozone generation and delivery, power, reactive gas generation, vacuum technology, lasers, photonics, sub-micron positioning, vibration control and optics. We also provide services related to the maintenance and repair of our products, installation services and training. Our primary served markets include the semiconductor, industrial technologies, life and health sciences, research and defense. Additional information can be found at www.mksinst.com.

About the ESI Brand

ESI is a brand within the MKS Instruments Equipment & Solutions Division. The ESI portfolio consists of laser-based micro manufacturing systems and component test systems that are used worldwide by manufacturers in the electronics industry to process the materials and components that are an integral part of the electronic devices and systems in use today. Leveraging over 40 years of laser-material interaction expertise and applied laser technology, ESI solutions enable customers to optimize production by providing more control, greater application flexibility and more precise processing of a wide range of materials. The result is higher production quality, increased throughput and higher back-end yields at a lower total cost-of-ownership. Additional information can be found at www.esi.com.

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