June 17, 2002
Furukawa Electric is going to drastically buildup the product lineup for Pb-free reflow furnace and printer, which undergoes rapid popularization to cope with environmental issues.
In the first stage, a new nitrogen furnace called "Salamander XNB" was launched into the marketplace this June to succeed "Salamander XNA" which had been the latest model of Pb-free furnace since last year.
Salamander XNB has improved its hot-air heater system thereby greatly upgrading the heating performance by as much as 130 % in comparison to XNA, while inheriting the hot air bypass system employed in the XNA to suppress power consumption. Furthermore two types are available with XNB, like XNA, such as "Hot-Air Heating Type" which features easy setup of operating conditions, and "Combined Far-Infrared and Hot-Air Heating Type" which features flexible ability for condition setup to meet the diversified requirements for various temperature profiles. On the other hand, the maintenance performance has also been improved including improvements in the flux retrieval system, thus making this equipment a volume production machine with excellent cost performance for surface mounting technology (SMT).
The Salamander XNB, capable of meeting the Pb-free requirements for commercial use, is expected to achieve sales of 400 sets within a year. In spite of its full-fledged performance, the price of XNB is comparable to that of XNA.
Furukawa Electric intends to strengthen hereafter Pb-free products lineup further, including an atmospheric furnace having the same structure together with an upgraded top-and-bottom hot-air heater type for large-sized substrates for industrial use. A new model of cream solder printer enabling high-precision and high-speed printing is also scheduled to be on sale shortly.