Advanced Packaging of SMT Assemblies for Greater Cost Reduction

Legacy electronics assemblies, such as through-hole (Figure 1) and connectorized component packages, are robust and prevalent throughout industry. However, each of these assembly methods have reached their limits in terms of weight, volume, reliability, and most importantly cost. With cost reduction of assemblies now the primary focus area throughout the electronics industry, there is more of a need than ever to implement the latest advancements in surface mount technology (SMT) into electronics assembly designs. Although SMT has been utilized in the electronics industry for many years, implementation of the technology is still in the ever-evolving process of reducing component footprint size, component spacing, and component I/O pitch. Implementation of the most up-to-date SMT processes provides optimal weight, volume, and cost savings, for any type of assembly....