Sierra Circuits - Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Tips

Sierra Circuits - Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Tips Many people don’t like to deal with surface mount technology (SMT) because of some misinformation about it. There exist several good references for commercial assembly, but not much is written about... More

Sierra Circuits - Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Tips Many people don’t like to deal with surface mount technology (SMT) because of some misinformation about it. There exist several good references for commercial assembly, but not much is written about prototyping and hand soldering with SMT. SMT is a type of electronic component package. Surface Mount (SM) is one of two categories of electronic components; the second is through hole (TH). SM components are designed for loading and soldering on a specific side of the printed circuit board. TH is designed for loading and printing on one side of the circuit board. Why is SMT used in industry? SMT offers several important benefits over though TH -- including smaller physical size with the same electrical function -- are cheaper in terms of raw material, have less unwanted effects and are faster for automatic machines to place. The greatest advantage of SMT is the real estate saved by not drilling holes through the board. That allo Less