Spending 2021 as president, and with my recent appointment to President and CEO of Delphon as of January 1st, 2022, I couldn’t be any prouder of my organization. Our team showed tremendous tenacity this past year. We not only survived tremendous headwinds caused by supply chain and logistics challenges but in fact thrived, showing stellar double-digit growth over our equally excellent 2020 performance!
In 2021, we expanded our organization to accommodate and accelerate the execution of our growth strategies and have more planned for 2022. As a company, we increased our emphasis on quality and new product development.
Our goal is to provide our customers with valued solutions and become an extension of their R&D over time. This is only possible through close collaboration with select customers that share our inherent curiosity and will to solve the difficult challenges facing our industry.
Our three business units — Gel-Pak, UltraTape, and TouchMark — made it possible for us to make sure our customers’ demand needs saw little or no disruption. We put a high priority on delivering an excellent customer experience, and harness that drive and desire into our creativity and problem-solving skills to consistently overcome the challenges that face us and the entire industry. It’s easy during times like these to throw your hands up and use the macroenvironment to cover your shortcomings. At Delphon, we used this opportunity to show why we are best in class when it comes to protecting the world’s delicate devices.
Gel-Pak launched three new products in 2021. First was our Lid-Clip Super System (LCS2™) to reduce die migration (Figure 1). The LCS2 protects extremely thin die — down to 2 mils (50μm) — from the jostling that occurs as they are handled and transported around the world by semiconductor manufacturers, their distributors, and customers.
The second was APV/VRP, a non-silicone-containing polyurethane, available in vacuum release and gel box product lines, which is being quickly adopted for photonics applications, as well as others where silicone sensitivity is an issue (Figure 2).
Last is our unique Textured Vertec® technology, which is available in a variety of form factors and is being adopted for temporarily immobilizing devices during the manufacturing process as well as during transportation (Figure 3).
New products are always fun to talk about, but what was most important this past year was helping to keep our customers’ lines up and running by ensuring that they received devices intact. We effectively managed our supply chain, at a cost, to support our existing customers seamlessly with our tried-and-true portfolio of products.
