PartnerTech adds new equipment to Cambridge facility

The new equipment will enable the company to meet increased demand and to further improve throughput and yields for UK-based product designers looking for a local, flexible, fast turnaround printed circuit board (PCB) prototyping and small to medium volume system assembly service. PartnerTech’s 1,400 square metre Cambridge site has been providing services from the Coldham’s Lane location for over a decade. Its customers include design consultancies and OEMs in point of sale (POS) applications, medical technology and instrumentation, industry, defence/aerospace and maritime, Information Technology, and cleantech. These include, among others, Plextek, Ricardo, Solarflare Communications, TTP and Ultra Electronics. With the addition of the new Mydata SMT line, the facility now has three high speed and high accuracy placement machines, all of which can accommodate the most up-to-date package styles such as 01005, 0201, 0402, QFP, QFN, ball grid array (BGA), microBGA, and chip scale packages. The in-line AOI system will complement the existing X-ray inspection to further improve throughput and quality. Gary Howse, managing director of PartnerTech’s UK operation, said: “Our experienced engineering team in Cambridge provides customers with a fast, friendly and flexible PCB prototyping and system build service with yields consistently better than 99%. This is probably why our top ten customers have been using us collectively now for well over 100 years. “The new SMT equipment gives us the capacity to meet an upsurge in demand while maintaining our reputation as a high quality, fast turnaround NPI centre. And, importantly, as part of a larger group, we also have the ability to provide customers with a gateway to our UK manufacturing site in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, or for those that want an offshore option, to transfer production to one of our low cost manufacturing facilities in either Poland or China.”