The development history of SMT surface technology
Surface mount technology is developed from the manufacturing technology of component circuits. As early as 1957, the United States made micro-electronic components called Chip Components, which were assembled on the surface of printed circuit boards. In the mid-1960s, the Dutch Philips company successfully developed and researched surface assembly technology, which attracted great attention from developed countries in the world. The United States soon used SMT in the IBM 360 electronic computer. After that, aerospace and industrial electronic equipment also began to use SMTO. In June 1977, Panasonic Corporation of Japan launched an ultra-thin radio with a thickness of 12. 7 mm (0.5 in). , Named “paper”, causing a sensation. At that time, Panasonic named the chip circuit components used in it “Hybrid Micro Circuits”. At the end of the 1970s, SMT entered a large number of consumer electronic products for civilian use, and began to have a commodity supply market for chip circuit components. After entering the 1980s, due to the needs of microelectronics products, SMT as a new type of assembly technology has been widely used in microelectronics assembly. It is called the assembly revolution of the electronics industry, marking that the installation technology of electronic products has entered the first The fourth generation also led to the third climax of automation of electronic assembly equipment. According to foreign reports, for more than ten years, the global electronic products using through-hole assembly technology are declining at a rate of 11%, while electronic products using SMT are increasing at a rate of 8%. So far, more than 80% of electronic products in developed countries and regions such as Japan, the United States, and the European Community have adopted SMT. my country’s electronic products using SMT have also grown rapidly, and are widely used in electronic product packaging in various fields. United China.
The development of SMT has gone through four stages so far:
The first stage (1970-1975): The main technical goal of SMT is to apply miniaturized chip components to the production of hybrid integrated circuits (HIC, called thick film circuits in my country). From this perspective, SMT has made a significant contribution to the development of integrated circuit manufacturing process and technology. At the same time, SMT began to be widely used in civilian quartz electronic watches and electronic calculators and other products.
The second stage (1976-1985): In this stage, SMT made electronic products rapidly miniaturized and multi-functional, widely used in products such as video cameras, headset radios and electronic cameras; at the same time, a large number of surface-mounted automation equipment After research and development, the assembly process and support materials of the chip components have also been mature, laying the foundation for the next major development of SMT.
The third stage (1986-2000): The main goal of SMT is to reduce costs and further improve the cost-effectiveness of electronic products; a large number of automated surface mounting equipment and process methods have emerged to increase the use of chip components on PCBs at a rapid rate. Accelerated the decline in the total cost of electronic products.
The fourth stage (2001-present): SMT has entered a new stage of micro-assembly, high-density assembly and three-dimensional assembly, as well as the rapid development and mass application of new surface mount components such as multi-chip components.
In Europe and America, SMT is mainly used for military and investment (automobiles, computers, communication equipment, industrial equipment) electronic products, and it is still in the peak stage of development.
In my country, the development and application of chip components has a history of nearly 20 years. In the early stage, it was mainly used as an external component of HIC (Hybrid Integrated Circuit); in the late 1980s, with the introduction of consumer and investment electronic product production lines, component manufacturers also began to produce chip components. In the early 1990s, domestic chip components accounted for about 1-12% of the world’s SMT component output. In recent years, the popularization and popularization of surface assembly technology in my country has also made great progress, and the standardization and standardization of chip components has been completed.
