Who of you experts can tell me the history of SMT?

Hi William,

well I guess SMT was invented accidentally when for what reason ever (be CAD related or PCB shop related) those PCB�s with no drillholes at all appeared in the assembly. Ah, you know these fella�s who are never short of a quick solution, don�t waste their time with whining, argueing, blaming and so on, instead just made the best out of it cut or bent the leads and just soldered them to what they only had, the surface and sold the whole thing as new technology called what it was, Surface Mounted Technology. Nice and short story isn�t it ? Or was it due to agressive marketing of some via gurus who couldn�t live with the truth that vias in the PTH-age were rated as crutch and only necessary to conceal the layouters inability to disentagle all those connections of these fu..... more and more complex circruitry.

But serious, guess it started step by step with some parts being just cheaper with no leadmounting and the demand for more parts on a given space. Also the demand for more and easier automated processing of devices may have been a driving force. And really, ... with the "invention" of the PCB there also was a new part in electronics that made these things possible and therefore it seems to be more than logic (ehh..mmmh, could that be ...?) that things moved into that direction. Before with all that "chassis build" devices it just wasn�t even possible to do that. So as I would see it, the actual starting point is the PCB, the more important milestone in this context. I don�t know when it really started and where but from hearsay BGA�s and respective the mounting technology was already developed in the 60�th for example. Another hearsay points to Japan and their favour for small things. If you look deeper to this subject you may find that a lot of people and companies claim to have invented this whole stuff. What�s literature telling about that? I guess Dave will be able to give ample advice where to look and read.

If I�m retired it would be nice to tell my grandchilds ... and than I did this SMT thing that was actually invented in .. �hhh, mmh..heeyyy... ok will you come back before dark please ? ... ;-)

Good luck with your findings

Wolfgang (not long enough in this world to remember)

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MYTH: SMT => Dirt => Beer => Girls

FACT: * Hybrid circuits in the 1960s that were used to conquer space where the genesis of today's SMT. * Japanese commecialized it to build better transitor radios * UIC & Dynapert fought it tooth and nail. UIC finally got the picture. The other never did.

Erzit the other way around [fact then myth]? Too much flux flumes.

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William,

Just to start with, I am no expert, but I have a few books lurking.

According to one entry, Surface Mounted resistors stuck to circuit boards had been described in 1952 (Circuit World, Feb edition 1952, page 70) The first mention of a device with its terminals in contact with conductors on a circuit board occurs in a BRITISH PATENT in 1960. So, as you can see, it's us limeys who are to blame for all of this grief...if you can believe all that you read.

Regards,

Chris

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