Site:

Inventec Corporation
Inventec Building, 66 Hou-Kang St., Shih-Lin District, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
Tel: 886-2-881-0721; Fax: 886-2-881-1288

Participants:

Chen-Pang Lin, Vice President, Manufacturing Division
H. K. Chang, Senior Manger, Automation Engineering Department
Chime Chang, Senior Manager, Surface Mounting Department

Mission and strategy

• Inventec produces notebook computers, phones, personal digital assistants, calculators, electronic dictionaries, and facsimile machines.
• Inventec is a 100% ODM manufacturer with exception of electronic Chinese language dictionaries sold under its own BESTA brand name. Inventec has 60% market share in Taiwan for electronic dictionaries.
• Notebook production is 50,000 per month with planned 100,000 per month in 1997. It claims to have the largest notebook revenues in Taiwan (Acer has more unit volume). Principal customer was Compaq's LTE 5000 series notebook, designed and manufactured by Inventec.

Key elements of presentation

• Established 20 years ago as board level contract manufacturer. Inventec now combines contract design and manufacturing capability for computer and communication products.
• Revenues for Inventec Taiwan were NT$14 billion with 5,000 employees. Inventec group revenues were NT$20 billion. Projection for 1996 is NT$35 billion.
• Inventec has three factories in Taiwan: WooKu for PDAs and TI's graphic card, Linko for computer docking stations, and Taipei for notebook computers. A joint venture with Toshiba in Malaysia produces fax machines. In 1991, a factory was build in Shanghai, China (1,300 employees including 500 software programmers).

Key elements of tour

• The Taipei factory has 6 SMT long lines with MPM screen printers, Camelot 3800 glue dispensers, Panasonic MV2C, MV2F, MSH2, and MPA chip placement machines, one Universal GSM system for through-hole insertion.
• Furukawa, EXCEL ER-1000, and Electrovert nitrogen reflow ovens have improved quality 60%.
• Inventec is the only Taiwanese firm (with three machines) using selective solder lines for through-hole components.
• Inventec has produced TCP for three years in making Apple Newton PDA boards. It uses two Universal hot bar bonders for TCP.
• In 1996, PBGA with 420 I/Os and 320 I/Os are planned for assembly.
• SMT defect goal of 20 ppm (98%) yield has been reached. Component defect rate for TAB is 500 ppm.
• SMT operates 24 hours with two days on, then two days off. The shifts run from 7:20 to 7:40 giving 40 minutes of overlap per day.

Core competencies

• Design for ODM includes minimum through-hole components for maximum automation.
• Desire to eliminate ICT testing as quality levels increase. Focus on reliability testing.
• Dedicated Panasonic equipment and component customer for SMT. Produces 208 lead QFP on SMT line.
• Selective solder system for through-hole components.

Conclusions

• Well-planned and clean SMT and assembly operations.
• Notebook for Compaq is high-end product.