DEK emerges victorious at Apex 2010; receives five prestigious industry honors!

The DEK team is currently celebrating a record-breaking number of award wins following this year’s Apex exhibition, held in Las Vegas. Not only did the mass imaging leader collect its eighth consecutive Service Excellence Award during the show, but it also received three Innovative Technology Center accolades and a New Product Introduction trophy for the breakthrough represented by its VectorGuard® Platinum Double Layer stencil.

For the eighth year in a row, DEK was awarded Circuits Assembly magazine’s Service Excellence Award, an accolade which recognizes companies who excel in the area of customer service. Customers ranked DEK in five critical areas of support – dependability/timely delivery, manufacturing quality, responsiveness to requests and changes, technology, and value for money. With DEK receiving the highest customer service ratings in the Screen Printing category, the prestigious Service Excellence accolade is an important vote of confidence from its worldwide customer base.

The DEK team at Apex was also celebrating recognition by the Innovative Technology Center (ITC); each of the three DEK technologies entered in the program was selected for an honor. Sponsored by Apex show organizer IPC, the ITC recognizes products for their innovation and ability to deliver real and relevant value to the electronics supply chain. DEK Sentinel was among the technologies recognized by the ITC. A complete print process safeguarding and control tool featuring 100% post-print inspection at full line speed, Sentinel isolates bad boards in real time without adversely impacting production pace. Combined with advanced Verification and Traceability tools, Sentinel moves the print process a step closer towards ‘hands off’ operation.

ProFlow® ATx was also a recipient of the ITC accolade, honored for moving enclosed head printing into the next generation. Delivering consistent and robust process control and performance, ProFlow ATx minimizes manual intervention, reduces cost and lowers material waste. Completing the winning ITC trio was DEK’s latest stencil advance, VectorGuard Double Layer Platinum. Enabling fine line printing (< 2 mils or 50 microns), the stencil is more effective than traditional screens for some specialist applications, including Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC), along with microelectronic packaging and processes that dictate high tolerance, fine dimension printing. Fittingly, VectorGuard Double Layer Platinum also made it an awards double, collecting Circuit’s Assembly’s New Product Introduction Award. An independent panel of industry engineers selected the technology as one of the most important products launched over the past 12 months.

About DEK

DEK is a global provider of advanced materials deposition technologies and support solutions including printing equipment platforms, stencils, precision screens and mass imaging processes used across a wide range of applications in electronics pre-placement subassembly, semiconductor wafer manufacture, and alternative energy component production. For more information, visit DEK at http://www.dek.com