ITEC introduces the industry’s fastest, and most accurate RFID inlay die bonder

ITEC’s ADAT3 XF Tagliner is the industry’s fastest, and most accurate RFID inlay die bonder. Featuring placement speeds of up to 48,000 Units Per Hour (UPH), with positional and rotational accuracies better than 9 microns and 0.67º at 1 sigma, it is three times faster and 30% more accurate than other die bonding equipment. “The machine has already been working perfectly at several advance customer sites and we’re now ready for commercial release internationally,” said ITEC Product Management Director, Martijn Zwegers.

The ADAT3 XF Tagliner is fully automated, with yields in excess of 99.5%. It has the industry’s lowest Total Cost of Ownership for equipment of this type and can bring a significant competitive advantage by lowering manufacturing costs. It opens a broad range of new RFID applications including retail and automotive labels, access control, railway tickets, airline luggage tags, and shipping containers amongst others.

Semiconductor industry-standard features

RFID is fundamentally a semiconductor technology, an industry in which ITEC has over 30 years of experience. The company has successfully installed hundreds of similar high-volume semiconductor chip-attach systems in other markets. The ADAT3 XF Tagliner includes semiconductor industry-standard features like automatic wafer change (for 8- and 12-inch wafers) and multiple high-resolution cameras inspecting before and after every process step.

The machine’s high-precision glue curing system has only two thermodes. This results in fewer moving parts for improved reliability and maintainability. The curing time of 65 ms is two orders of magnitude lower than other RFID die bonders (typically several seconds), significantly increasing operating efficiency.

The ADAT3 XF Tagliner can accommodate a diverse range of transparent and opaque web materials. That gives it another advantage over incumbent RFID die bonding equipment, which can only use transparent material. The system integrates BW Paper systems winders and Voyantic readers, meaning that it is ready-to use with emerging and more sustainable substrate materials like paper, which are gradually replacing PET plastics. Even up to a web pitch of 50.8 mm, it can keep its unrivalled speed of 48,000 UPH.

Fully qualified for major RFID players

“This RFID die bonder has been optimized by leveraging semiconductor industry innovations and is likely to be the benchmark system over the coming years,” states Martijn Zwegers. The process is fully qualified for major chip suppliers and meets the industry’s most rigorous temperature, humidity, and mechanical reliability requirements. Today it can place dies with dimensions as small as 200 microns, and this figure will improve over time. Upgrades over the course of the ADAT3 XF Tagliner’s lifetime will further optimize operation and boost performance, thereby future-proofing today’s investment.