Exception receives major US contract

Worth over $1.4m per year, the seven year contract involves the supply and assembly of flex-rigid PCBs, that will be integrated in the complex print head used in the stamp cancellation process for the US postal service. The contract win comes as a result of extensive reliability and durability tests on Exception’s PCB by Video Jet, the world’s largest manufacturer in the specialist printer marketplace, over the last 18 months. With a 280 pin connection that incorporates 60 micron track and gap to enable the fan out of between 2 and 5 custom die, each with over 400 wire bonds, the PCB co-developed by Exception represents the pinnacle of this technology. With full scale production of the stamp cancellation printers going live in Q4 2008, Exception will manufacture approximately 200 of the complex PCBs per month. The finished products will be installed across many of the post office’s sorting facilities in a dual redundant set up across the USA during 2009. Garry Myatt, sales director at Exception PCB, said: “This award is a real feather in our cap and illustrates the advanced PCB manufacturing techniques that we have pioneered at our facility in Tewkesbury, UK. “Clearly the current exchange rate position has made our offer even more attractive to customers in the US who are increasingly seeking highly engineered, reliable HDI solutions from Europe. In the early development stages of the PCB, we were seeing yields as high as 80 per cent and 18 months on, this continues to be the same. This is testament to the process control we have within our facility and as production gathers momentum we are looking to improve this further with each production batch.”