COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado – Photo Stencil has been selected as a finalist for this year’s SMT VISION Awards. Instituted in 1991, the SMT VISION Awards honor the products and technologies that have shaped the PCB manufacturing industry over the past year. Under consideration for award is the company’s BGA/QFN Repair Tool for Multiple Packages in the category Rework and Repair.

Rework and repair of defective or misplaced components is cost-effective with today’s expensive assemblies. Traditional repair methods require printing solder paste directly onto the board, which can be challenging and tedious, especially with small components and dense layouts. The BGA/QFN Repair Tool enables printing of solder paste directly on the QFN pads or BGA balls instead of the board. Thus, the need to navigate densely packaged areas with a mini-stencil is eliminated, and typical component placement operations can be completed in about 30 seconds.

“We would like to congratulate the finalists of the VISION Awards. Every step and contribution to the technology is quite an amazing thing. The time, energy, and intellect given to new ideas often go unnoticed. Therefore, we are especially happy to take a few moments out of the hectic pace of IPC APEX to applaud you for winning this prestigious award,” states Gail Flower, Editor-in-Chief, SMT magazine.

Nominees for the SMT VISION Awards are evaluated on their ability to meet a significant industry challenge, creative application of a new or existing technology, overall quality and consistency of performance, economic merits, and throughput characteristics. Products are judged specifically on their innovation, cost-effectiveness, speed/throughput improvements, quality, ease of use, maintainability/repairability, and environmental responsibility.

The winners of the 16th Annual SMT VISION Awards will be announced on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Convention Center, Las Vegas from 6:00 to 7:30 P.M. For more information, visit www.photostencil.com.