May - June 1999
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Is X-Ray Inspection an Undiscovered Market?
Known for their astute, many would say aggressive, incursions into most segments of the U.S. semiconductor equipment arena, the Japanese have been strangely absent from the x-ray inspection marketplace.Not that the five domestic and European vendors are complaining, mind you. And the ones we contacted for this article didn't want to be quoted by name.
Why haven't the Japanese entered this market? In a way they have, although not for the end-user, according to one supplier. Hamamatsu Corp. of Japan distributes x-ray sources in the U.S. to OEMs, and reportedly supplies at least one of the five vendors doing business in the U.S.
One Japanese supplier of end-user x-ray inspection equipment, Pony Ltd., has apparently been observing the U.S. market for some time, but hasn't sold equipment outside of Japan. Why? "This is a very competitive market," emphasizes one x-ray equipment supplier. "I suspect the Japanese feel they could not compete successfully."
Prices for X-ray inspection equipment have declined dramatically over the past few years, which is probably the key reason the Japanese believe they can't compete profitably here, one supplier observed.—R.I.