Hefex Etna / The first AI-native pick and place machine

Pick & place, built
for PCB prototyping

From loose components to an assembled PCB in under 10 minutes.

No expertise needed
90% less setup time
Any component feeding

Demo video

Pre-orders open22% reserved

Founding batch, limited

Supported by

Official Partner of Bavarian Chips Alliance

≤ 10 min

From file upload to assembled PCB

Any format

Reels, trays, tape or loose

No expertise

The AI does the setup work

How the Hefex Etna works

Components loose, in trays, on cut tape or in feeders
Board fixed or loose
The machine finds all of it, fully automatic

Detection on loose components and a bare board: every part labelled with its package, the board outlined — Loose components, loose board, straight onto the bed. No sorting, clamping or calibration beforehand.

Detection on a tray: each component in its pocket labelled with its nozzle count — Loose components, loose board, straight onto the bed. No sorting, clamping or calibration beforehand.

The machine takes over the work the operator used to do.

Hefex web app: the uploaded board parsed into a BOM with packages, quantities and designators

Upload the files exactly as your CAD tool exports them. The software automatically sorts out board origin, part rotations and unknown packages. No manual reformatting required.

01 Analyze

Upload your design files

Upload the files exactly as your CAD tool exports them. The software automatically sorts out board origin, part rotations and unknown packages. No manual reformatting required.

02 See

Run detection

The machine scans the work area and finds every part, whether loose, on cut tape, in trays or in feeders, and the board wherever you put it. Nothing has to be sorted, taught or calibrated first.

Hefex web app: detection complete, with the board, a tray and 13 components found on the work area

03 Understand

Placement setup

The vision AI identifies every component and matches it to your design data, so it knows what each part is and where it belongs.

Hefex web app: every detected component matched to its designator, position and target rotation

04 Place

Placement

Start the job. The machine picks each part from where it lies and places it. The progress can be followed live in the web app.

A real run in real time, nothing sped up: loose components to an assembled PCB in under 10 minutes, setup included.

Playing loads the video from YouTube.

Why this wasn't possible until recently

Vision models have become far more capable

Reliably detecting loose components of any shape and size needs vision models that we train ourselves. The architectures and training methods behind them have only become good enough in the last few years.

Cloud inference only just got cheap

Fast, cheap GPU inference as a service is recent. A few years ago, the compute cost alone would have made a pipeline like ours uneconomical.

Software-first wasn't proven yet

Pick-and-place was long treated as a hardware problem. Existing vendors pushed their complexity into manual programming instead of solving it in software.

A nozzle holding a chip component onto the two impedance test pads

Built-in test pads let the machine measure a part electrically, so it can tell apart components that look the same, such as resistors with different values.

01 Measure

Impedance test pads

Built-in test pads let the machine measure a part electrically, so it can tell apart components that look the same, such as resistors with different values.

02 Place

Dual nozzle

Two nozzles work on the same job. Each picks its part from wherever it is, loose, on tape or in a feeder.

The two nozzles under the ring light of the placement head

03 See

Tray and PCB detection

Any kind of tray is recognized, including its pockets. PCBs and panels are detected as well, without fiducials.

Hefex web app: detection complete, with a tray, its pockets and the board found on the work area

04 Flip components

Flipping station

The vision system detects components lying the wrong way up. The machine turns them over on the built-in flipping station and places them.

Data sheet

Max PCB size: 300 × 300 mm
Smallest component: 0402
Placement speed: 500 CPH with vision
XY repeatability: ±0.01 mm
Reel feeders: 25 (8/12 mm) or 12 (16/24 mm)
Tape lanes: 48 (8 mm)
Flexible working area: 375 × 330 mm for PCB, trays and tape (excluding feeders)
Placement heads: 2
Max component height: 50 mm (tape, tray, feeder)
Minimum pitch: 0.4 mm
Minimum BGA pitch: 0.5 mm
Max part weight: 25 g
Power supply: 230 V / 500 W
Connectivity: 4 × USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, HDMI
Internet connection: Required
Machine dimensions: 850 × 695 × 570 mm (W × D × H)
Machine weight: 40 kg

The Hefex Etna needs an internet connection: component recognition runs in the cloud. Design files, images and job data are processed on servers in Germany.

New features via software update

01Electrical differentiation of identical-looking components
02Automatic flipping of components
03Nozzle changer (8 slots)
04Support for 0201 components

Planned features. They arrive as software updates on the hardware every Hefex Etna ships with, so there is nothing to retrofit. They are not part of the pre-order scope and not guaranteed. What we commit to is the data sheet.

Every other pick & place machineHefex Etna

Components

Others

A taught feeder for every part type, trays only with heavy programming

Hefex Etna

Reels, cut tape, any trays or completely loose, mixed, without any additional setup effort

The PCB

Others

Clamped, located and calibrated first

Hefex Etna

Flexible, with or without a fixture, no fiducials required

A new component type

Others

Manual training and configuration

Hefex Etna

Recognized out of the box

Design data

Others

Converted by hand into the format the machine requires

Hefex Etna

Upload the assembly file, the software prepares it automatically

Placement program

Others

Written and maintained manually, job by job

Hefex Etna

Generated automatically from the design data

Operator

Others

6 to 8 hours of training and experience required

Hefex Etna

Guided by the software, no experience needed

First setup

Others

About a day, usually with a technician on site

Hefex Etna

Unbox, plug in, start, run a few automatic calibrations, much like a modern 3D printer

From file upload to assembled PCB

Others

90+ minutes

Hefex Etna

≤ 10 minutes

From file upload to assembled PCB.

Conventional pick & place machine90+ min

Hefex Etna≤ 10 min*

* depending on the number of boards and components

90%faster per job

80+ minutes saved on every job, from file upload to assembled PCB.

5 reasons teams choose the Hefex Etna

01No expertise requiredAnyone can operate it, with no pick-and-place experience at all. The software guides you through every step, and at the end you have an assembled board.
02Ready to use immediatelyNo lengthy setup or onboarding process: power it on and get started right away.
03No training phase for new componentsUnlike many existing systems, it doesn't need to be manually trained or configured for each new component type. It recognizes and places all components out of the box.
04Flexible component feedingLoad reels, tape sections, loose parts, or trays in any mix, exactly as you have them on hand. No pre-sorting or repackaging needed.
0590% faster to the assembled PCBThe result of the four points above: from file upload to assembled PCB in 10 minutes or less instead of 90+, and the engineering time goes into the actual work.