Kulicke & Soffa Sells Wedge Bonder

Jack Belani, K&S senior vice president, Wire Bonding Division and Corporate Marketing noted that "Since wedge bonders represented less than 1% of our sales last year, it makes more sense for us to focus our R&D resources on our major product lines including ball bonders and test products. We will, however, continue to sell refurbished machines and support our installed base with spare parts and service. Additionally, we will also sell our existing wedge bonder models for a period of approximately 2 years, during which period Orthodyne will continue to develop and enhance their product portfolio with K&S’s technology. We are pleased to be working with Orthodyne, whom we believe is well positioned to continue to serve the marketplace with Wedge bonders."

Gregg Kelly, president of Orthodyne notes, "Wedge bonding equipment is our company’s primary focus. The new technology and designs purchased from K&S will enhance our product offerings and allow our engineers to create new, best-in-class machines that have their roots in both K&S and Orthodyne designs. We look forward to extending our leading market position as we focus on wedge bonding solutions for our customers."

About Kulicke & Soffa
Kulicke & Soffa (NASDAQ: KLIC) is the world's leading supplier of semiconductor wire bonding assembly equipment. We believe K&S is the only major supplier to the semiconductor assembly industry that provides customers with semiconductor wire bonding equipment along with the complementing packaging materials and test interconnect products that actually contact the surface of the customer's semiconductor devices. The ability to control all of these assembly related products is unique to Kulicke & Soffa, and allows us to develop system solutions to the new technology challenges inherent in assembling and packaging next-generation semiconductor devices. Test interconnect products include a variety of wafer probe cards, ATE interface assemblies, and PC boards for wafer testing, as well as test sockets for all types of packaged semiconductor devices. Kulicke & Soffa's web site address is http://www.kns.com.




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