Rosenheim, Germany, January 2011: Multitest announces that it has been awarded a Global Technology Award in the category of Components for its DURA® Kelvin™. The award was presented to the company during a ceremony that took place during SMTA International at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, FL.

The committee valued the great impact of contactors in final test on cost when it comes to lifespan and cleaning cycle. Cleaning frequency is a major cost contributor in terms of cost of test (COT), especially at high parallel test setups. The challenge is to provide contacting solutions which overcome the challenges given by solder migration / diffusion and wear (among others) in order to achieve the minimum need for cleaning and maximum lifespan.

Multitest’s DURA® Kelvin provides optimum parameters based on the design of experiment methods. Optimized parameters include: contact force, contact scrub, spring tip geometry, spring coating, and surface roughness. Another important performance criterion is the lifespan of more than 1Mio for contact springs.

The DURA® Kelvin improves the throughput of a test cell by reducing downtime due to contactor cleaning. The improvement is based on the number of parallel sites, but even at a single site environment, a five percent improvement was observed. Looking at a quad site setup, the a costumer was able to increase throughput by approximately 20 percent. This is a huge improvement for overall cost of test / cost of ownership.

Premiering in 2005, the Global Technology Awards program is an annual celebration of product excellence in electronics surface mount assembly. Premier products based on the finest examples of creative advancement in technology are chosen by a distinguished panel of industry experts.