Edward Hughes, Chairman & CEO, Aculon, Inc.

The global economy is still a concern with the ongoing uncertainties about the "trade war" with China and its impact on the packaging market, particularly the PCB market in China.

Nordson MARCH's global leadership with financial strength and more than 30 years in designing and manufacturing plasma equipment differentiates us. We have proven technology with several thousand plasma systems installed worldwide.

Our product's flexible chamber, advanced automation, and material handling provide high throughput, yield, and uptime resulting in competitive cost-of-ownership, and our pre-sales application team helps customers minimize the installation-to-production cycle with on-site implementation and training to provide process teams with in-depth plasma treatment and product knowledge.

In 2020 we’ll introduce additional products to Nordson MARCH's VIA™ series to address requirements for larger (>52 in.) and thicker (>9 mm) panels with high uniformity across the panel (edge-to-center) and within the high aspect ratio through-hole or via (top-to middle).

We'll also introduce PROGENY, a new plasma system with a large chamber for cleaning and activating the surfaces of extended catheters for the medical market and to treat the surfaces of parts up to 2 m long and 50 cm wide to achieve better wetting, coating, and adhesion. The SPHERE™ Series is expanding into panel-level packaging with a large chamber for the treatment of panels up to 650 x 650 mm2.

In the packaging market, we continue to see the mobile, wireless, and memory segments as the drivers for our product development effort and focus. As these segments maintain the push toward higher packaging density, low cost, and better yield, advanced packaging technologies are demanding advanced material handling, automation capabilities, larger board or panel plasma treatment with higher throughput, and better etch rate and uniformity, not only across board/panel (edge-to- center), but also within through-hole (top-to-middle).