Our newest goal is to update our entire customer base on a bimonthly basis of technology and industry events/updates and how Saturn is responding to them.

:: Bringing You Up to Speed ::

Many of our customers think of Saturn as the same company they first started dealing with, regardless of whether they started with us 10 months ago or 10 years ago. As such, we think a brief history is in order.

In the mid 1980’s Nagji Sutariya (Saturn’s President and QC Manager) decided to start his own business. After fooling around with diamond importing, art importing, and real estate, he decided that electronics was the way to go (remember, it was right around this time that the Sony Walkman was really hot!). After rounding up a total of 12 partners, they sat around the basement ping pong table to drum up a business plan. Since no one could think of a cool name for the company, they just swiped the name from GM’s new car division at that time, and Saturn Electronics Corporation was finally born in September 1985.

As is common, reality doesn’t always follow anticipated routes and Saturn was losing money every month through mid-1989. However, revenue was growing and there was still a little hope left. At that same time, AT&T decided to shut down its PCB fabrication facility and put its equipment up for silent auction (bids are submitted through the mail and highest bid wins). Nagji wanted a small $2000 deburr machine and put his bid down on the mailer. He then saw all of the other equipment up for bid and decided it would be funny to put down ridiculously low bids on everything. Six months later, to everyone’s surprise, they won everything! The only problem was that no one had any money to pay for the items. After borrowing and re-mortgaging, the equipment was paid for and transported to Saturn. Concurrently, Nagji and Co. were working feverishly to sell the equipment and within 4 weeks, almost everything was sold off. There was enough profit made from that fluke transaction to keep Saturn alive for another one and a half years when Saturn finally became a profitable enterprise. Funny how things work out, huh?

From 1989, Saturn’s commitment to quality, customer service, and re-investment resulted in an average growth rate of 25% per year. However, our technology remained in the 2 to 6 layer range, but with that kind of growth rate this wasn’t an issue. Sales finally peaked (along with the domestic industry) in 2000 at $22.8 million and capacity was doubled. Unfortunately, the industry started and nasty downfall and sales tanked to $12 million in 2002. After we stopped crying, we came up with a plan to re-invent Saturn. Instead of scaling back, we increased our investments to build on our industry-leading quality standards by increasing our technological capabilities.

In addition to the 2 to 6 layer technology Saturn grew up on, technology offerings now include layer counts up to 30 layers, line/space down to 4 mils, blind & buried vias, hybrid constructions, metal cores, and many other combinations! As a result, Saturn has been on a renewed growth streak over the past 3 years and the future has never been brighter! We hope to continue to grow with our customers for many years to come.

Coming Soon...
Laser Blind Via Drilling Capabilities. Please visit: http://www.excellon.com/Products/
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