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Investment continues into 2004

There may still be some areas of the electronics industry where doom and gloom prevail but this certainly does not apply at CIL, the Whitchurch based electronics design and manufacturing company.

At a time when most competitors are cutting back, CIL invested an excess of £460,000 in new production equipment during 2003 and the direct result was an expanding customer base and a 40% increase in turnover.

During 2003, CIL installed a new flying probe tester, a BGA rework facility, a new in-line solder printer, three Tyco surface mount placement machines and an Opus 3 selective solder line.

Managing director, John Boston, explains the rationale behind this impressive investment programme saying: "An essential part of our expansion plan was to concentrate on applications that require technically complex manufacturing techniques where our high level of skill and expertise gives us a competitive edge over off-shore manufacturing companies.

"This new equipment allows us to offer a total design, procurement, test and manufacturing capability that is second to none in the UK. We now provide state-of-the-art surface mount manufacture and electronic assembly for BGA, QFP, 0603 and 0402 components, chip and wire, thick film, conventional assembly including hand/wave soldering and selective soldering. We can process 64,000 components an hour and there is virtually no job that we cannot undertake at Whitchurch.

But achieving 40% growth in a market in which many companies are settling for survival does not mean that CIL is content to sit back on its laurels. The purchase of an X-ray test facility for BGA manufacture is already planned for early in 2004."

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