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December 19, 2019 | AT&SEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
No matter if it is diagnostic devices, therapeutic applications, implants or small medical devices such as hearing aids or insulin pumps—the requirements for printed circuit boards for health technology products are increasing. To consider this trend and to offer printed circuit boards and interconnection solutions with the highest quality and technology standards in the future, AT&S initiated a technology upgrade in mid-December at the AT&S location in Ansan, Korea. This technology upgrade will bring the production technologies in the factory to a new level. The Styrian PCB-manufacturer is investing around €30 million in the next two financial years, making a significant contribution to meeting the customers' requirements. The investments planned for the current financial year are already budgeted in the group investments for technology upgrades.
With the technology upgrade, around 8,000 square meters of additional production space will be available in the Korean AT&S plant from the end of 2020. Most of it will be used for the production of printed circuit boards for medical technology applications. Christian Fleck, COO of the Business Unit Automotive, Industrial and Medical at AT&S explains: “We have to continuously invest in the latest technologies in order to satisfy our customers’ needs on the one hand and to keep our promise to be 'First choice for advanced applications' on the other. This allows us to always offer the most modern interconnection technologies for future application generations to our existing and new customers,” says Fleck. "At the same time, technology upgrades open up great growth opportunities for us." The additional space will be used for new production facilities that will be installed by December 2020 and should receive all the necessary customer qualifications by mid-2021.
The high-tech PCBs manufactured by AT&S are used in a wide variety of medical areas: Hearing aids with special sensors for active noise cancellation in certain situations are just as important as cardiac catheters, which enable 3D images of the human heart, or intelligent medication pumps. “As a result of demographic change and the aging world population, the need for health applications will not only continue to grow, but many new medical products will be launched in the future," says AT&S CEO Andreas Gerstenmayer. “The investment is a clear signal to the market that applications in the field of health technologies are an important part of the AT&S strategy. In this way, we ensure that we will continue to be among the top providers of printed circuit board and interconnection solutions in the medical technology segment.”
About AT&S—Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik Aktiengesellschaft
AT&S is the global market leader for high-end printed circuit boards and one of the leading manufacturers of IC substrates. AT&S industrialises leading-edge technologies for its core business segments Mobile Devices, Automotive, Industrial and Medical. AT&S has a global presence with production sites in Austria (Leoben, Fehring) and plants in India (Nanjangud), China (Shanghai, Chongqing) and South Korea (Ansan near Seoul). The company employed an average of roughly 10,000 people in the financial year 2018/19. For further information please visit: www.ats.net
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