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12 SMT Magazine • May 2015 and by placing them closer together many of these challenges will be magnified. A feasible as- sembly process must be achieved. The assembly process ranges all the way from screen-printing, placement and reflow soldering in air or nitro- gen. Many factors influence the quality of the assembly process and with the reduced pitch and component spacing, the process capabili- ties for both assembly and PCB fabrication will be tested to its limit and beyond. In many cases these assemblies also require a rework process either in the manufacturing facility or at repair centers when the product fails in the field during usage. In addition, the correct materials such as PCB material, PCB sur- face finish, solder paste, dipping flux and PCB design need to be selected to ensure high-yield- ing, cost-effective and reliable interconnects. Of course, the mechanics of the products makes a big difference as well, but it is very product-de- Miniaturization and the integration of a growing number of functions in portable elec- tronic devices require an extremely high pack- aging density for the active and passive com- ponents. There are many ways to increase the packaging density. A few examples would in- clude stacking them with package-on-package (PoP), fine pitch CSPs, 01005 (imperial), and last but not least, reducing component-to-com- ponent spacing for active and passive compo- nents. The use of fine-pitch CSP, PoP components and 01005 poses a number of challenges for PCB design, SMT assembly process, and reliability, by Jonas Sjoberg, Ranilo aranda, David Geiger, anwar mohammed and murad kurwa FlExTroniCS ADVAnCED EnginEEring group (AEg) Miniaturization with the Help of Reduced Component-to-Component Spacing Feature