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TWST: Would you give us a brief historical sketch of the company and a
picture of the things you are doing at the present time?
Dr. Coccio: The company was founded in 1975 by Dr. Harvey Berger, who is
one of our Directors and our Chief Technology Officer. He invented the
ultrasonic nozzle and established the original patents. The ultrasonic
nozzle is electronically driven, and it creates a uniform spray of very
small droplets and very thin uniform coatings. Back at that time of the
energy crisis, the objective was to develop and then use these nozzles
in home heating systems. One of the benefits of ultrasonic atomization
nozzles is that they could burn less oil and put out less pollution than
traditional nozzles, due to the many small droplets. Sono-Tek got grants
from the Department of Energy and the EPA to pursue that goal. The
company did get a successful design, but at that point, the energy
crisis had ended. So the company moved into other markets, notably the
electronics industry. For the last 15 years or so, we've been a very
significant factor in the electronics industry, specifically in the area
of printed circuit board manufacture. The first step in circuit board
manufacture is a fluxing process, which applies a wetting agent to allow
the solder to adhere. The previous method of applying flux was with
either a bath method or traditional nozzles, both of which wasted liquid
flux, created environmental issues, and didn't give the highest
precision coverage. Sono-Tek introduced the first ultrasonic atomization
fluxing system and became the major force in that industry since then.
Moving forward, there are many other applications that could benefit
from ultrasonic atomization. For example, the coating of drug eluting
stents for implantation in coronary arteries is a perfect application
for a high precision nozzle, and the company has now sold many systems
to the medical device industry. One big advantage here is that those
ultrasonic droplets arrive at a surface and stay there, while, with a
typical nozzle, about 80% of the liquid can bounce off into the
environment. Medical device coatings can cost $3,000/gram, so there is
both a uniformity of coating and cost advantage with our nozzle systems.
Sono-Tek has recently moved into industrial coatings on materials such
as with glass and textiles, since the overspray or 'bounceback' from
traditional nozzles in these applications is both costly and creates
environmental capture and clean up problems and costs.
Tickers included in this excerpt: SOTK
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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