ACW Technology has invested nearly £1.75m in new equipment in the last 12 months. This investment is spread across all three of the contract manufacturer’s sites.

"We are unusual in UK-based EMS provider terms, having posted a healthy operational and bottom line profit for the last 14 years. This platform of financial stability makes sizeable re-investment possible and fosters our ability to grow new services to meet customer demand,” said Owen Reeves, group managing director, ACW.

Included in the list of new equipment are three new surface mount lines, four Europlacer Vitesse pick-and-place machines, two Takaya flying probe test machines, two autooptical inspection (AOI) systems, a new vacuum vapor phase soldering system, selective soldering machines and vibration testing equipment. 

Most recently, ACW has purchased Phoenix x-ray's Micromex x-ray inspection system from production automation system specialist Contax. 

"X-ray testing is increasing in importance as PCB assemblies become more challenging. We are constantly being asked to build higher density circuit boards with ever increasing numbers of Area Array packages, which are either high mass high ball count BGAs, or sub-miniature CSPs, and all this with an ever-growing quantity of components being placed on the underside of circuit boards, directly beneath these arrays," said Dave Norris, process engineer at ACW.

The company has more than 150,000 sq. ft of factory space across its three manufacturing sites in Southampton, South Wales and Southern China. It has 400 staff and sales of £45m.