Expansion of Soldering Robots
Japan Unix Co., Ltd. has been expanding its global operation of soldering robots, in which semiconductor lasers and ultrasound waves are applied. Amid the growing interest in the automation of production in China and other countries, sales of these soldering robots have been steadily increasing. The company has released a soldering robot and the UNIX-DF Series, which can be networked with a personal computer in a factory. The company also endeavors to introduce Internet of Things (IoT) in factories.

Panasonic Smart Factory Solutions Co., Ltd. has developed a connector-less joining method for directly joining FPCs to PCBs, and put it into practical use. This method uses a thermosetting resin, which contains tin and bismuth-based solder particles, to directly join FPC onto the motherboard using thermocompression bonding, thus enabling connectorless joining.

Alone Co., Ltd. has been expanding its metal processed components business using diffusion bonding technology.

After finely photoetching metal materials, such as stainless steel, copper alloy, iron, and nickel, with the use of chemical agents according to the pattern, metals are multilayered and joined using diffusion bonding to form three-dimensional (3D) metal components. This method allows the joining of several to more than 100 layers of metals.