SEMICONDUCTOR CAPITAL EQUIPMENT
With the demand of silicon chips proliferating, reaching an all-time high, supply chains across the world are strained to keep pace. Semiconductor Capital Equipment OEMs, in particular, are in great need of electronics contract manufacturers that can meet their challenging demands while navigating continuous supply chain disruptions. With material availability in a catch 22 (chips that are experiencing shortages are needed to make the machines to make the chips), it is more important than ever to have suppliers that can respond rapidly to material disruptions while scaling successfully to meet increasing demand. Global supply chain pressures are now ~2.5 standard deviations away from normal operations, and Federal Electronics is continuing to adapt to the challenges to support the needs of semiconductor capital equipment OEMs.
Federal Electronics + Semiconductor Capital Equipment
Federal Electronics has supported semi-cap customers for decades with the systems, people, and infrastructure in place needed for a successful partnership. Federal boasts a robust manufacturing ERP that runs daily using a concurrent finite scheduling algorithm to manage capacity while reacting quickly to changes in demand as well as changes in material availability. Impacts to promised delivery dates are immediately communicated – ensuring transparency with customers and providing as much time as possible to mitigate any supply chain issues as they arise.
Our Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP) currently manages a large menu base of 158,000 discrete component part numbers, which report to thousands of active, unique assemblies. This includes a multitude of subassemblies in a single build for which our vertical integration in Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) and harness assembly provides more control over the production processes as well as our vertical integration. Our seasoned manufacturing systems have proven highly proficient despite the shifting whims of the electronics manufacturing industry and high variability in demand. While availability of labor continues to be a challenge for many manufacturers, our formal in-house training and best-in-class standard work instructions (SWI/MWI) alleviate these concerns while guaranteeing superior and highly repeatable assembly execution. From cable assemblies to higher level assemblies, Federal Electronics excels at high-mix, low- to mid-volume, high-complexity manufacturing – making it a perfect fit for the semi-cap customer.
Large semiconductor capital equipment manufacturing, such as lithography systems and ion implantation systems, often require very large harness assemblies, Power Distribution Units (PDUs), and complex electronics systems. Federal Electronics is perfectly positioned to deal with the size, complexity, and precision required to manufacture many of the assemblies in these industry-critical machines. As technology and end-user needs continue to rapidly evolve, streamlined engineering change order (ECO) handling is critical to ensure timely product evolution. Federal Electronics is committed to processing these changes in a controlled and communicative manner while providing Design for Manufacturability and Assembly (DfMA) feedback in the process. Federal can also ensure builds are made exactly to print and specification, including any required adherence to IPC standards, up to class 3. DfMA along with Design for Supply Chain (DfSC) services can also provide opportunities to reduce overall costs, improve overall quality, and reduce the risk of supply chain disruption while increasing throughput.
Achieving a high standard of quality is fundamental to the culture at Federal Electronics and the focal point in all process design. We aim to be the best as we strive to continuously improve even as quality and dependability standards become progressively more demanding.
From our robust supply chain management systems and daily ERP scheduling, to our precise SWIs, and streamlined ECO processing, we aspire to excel for our semiconductor capital equipment partners everywhere.