What is surface mount technology?
Surface mount technology, SMT, and its associated surface mount devices, SMDs considerably speed up PCB assembly as the components simply mount on the board. Surface-mount technology (SMT) is basically a component assembly technology related to printed-circuit boards wherein the components are attached and connected on the surface of the board using batch solder-reflow processes. SMT differs from other PWB methods where the component leads are inserted into plated through-holes and wave-soldered from the bottom to fill in the holes and interconnect the components. SMT has the advantages of achieving higher packaging densities, higher reliability, and reduced cost than the plated through-hole insertion process. SMT is currently the process most widely used for low-cost, high-production consumer electronic assemblies.
The surface-mount process
1. Soldering Paste (Solder past printing )
Application by screening
Application of various types of solder paste, with an excellent print performance across various board designs.
2.Component placement
Picking and placing of components
High-speed pick and placing are done by several ASM assembly systems.
3.Soldering
Reflow soldering
We have several reflow soldering systems available in air or nitrogen for any necessary application.
4.Optical inspection
Reflow soldering
Available in air or nitrogen, we have several reflow soldering systems for any necessary application.
5.Automatic optical inspection
Our automatic inspection systems are equipped with high-performance cameras to evaluate, control, and optimize the SMT production process.
The Advantage of Surface Mount Technology
Surface mount technology (SMT) offers smaller component sizes and therefore should give a reduction in interference coupling since the overall circuit loop area can be smaller. This is, in fact, the case, but to take full advantage of SMT a multilayer board construction with the ground plane is necessary. There is a slight improvement when a double-sided board is relaid out to take SMT components, which is mainly due to shrinking the overall board size and reducing the length of individual tracks. The predominant radiation is from tracks rather than components.
But when a multilayer board is used, the circuit loop area is reduced to the track length times the track-to-ground plane height. Now, the dominant radiation is from the extra area introduced by the component lead-outs. The reduction in this area afforded by SMT components is therefore worthwhile. For EMC purposes, SMT and multilayer groundplane construction are complementary.
A further advantage of surface mount is that, rather than taking advantage of the component size reduction to pack more functions into a given board area, you can reduce the board area needed for a given function. This allows you more room to define quiet I/O areas and to fit suppression and filtering components when these prove to be needed.
Long term partnership
We will maintain older SMT technologies, such as axial and radial insertion until the relevant products have reached their definitive end-of-life. Because at Auspi, we focus on the long term.
Auspi PCBA competencies
Smt, Through Hole, Conformal coating, Functional testing, wire harness, box build.
