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December 2015 • SMT Magazine 35 In fact, every presentation that has been given, either as a webinar or a workshop or part of a seminar, is actually stored in our da- tabase. If you have a problem with solderabil- ity, you can find different presentations from different people going back a long time, so there is a wealth of stored information avail- able, in addition to access to webinars, semi- nars and the conferences, at a reduced price. We're only talking a few hundred pounds for a company to join. Las Marias: Finally, Keith, can you talk about the outlook that you are seeing for the smt industry? Bryant: Cleaning and coding is, and will con- tinue to be a big issue. One of the guys who gave a presentation at our conference was talking about the very small components—the 01005s, the 0201s—and these components tradition- ally have an end-cap on them. So you have a solder joint that goes up the side, but they are now designing these components without end-caps—so the only joint is under the com- ponent. They're doing this because it's cheaper and it means they can pack the components closer and closer together. These components, if we talk about 01005, are 0.4 mm x 0.2 mm, and still they want to pack them closely togeth- er. But, of course, they then become very hard to assemble because coplanarity is a big issue. There's no nice fill-it joint at the end; the only joint is underneath. I think these are going to become the next big challenge for our industry because Apple had already said that they really like this prod- uct and they're going to adopt it into their designs. A couple of companies who manu- facture very small cameras and other small de- vices also like the idea of packing more and more components with smaller and smaller spaces, but no one talks to the poor guys who assemble. That's one of the big jobs of the SMART Group, I think, for the next year at least; how- ever, there will always be challenges. The leg- islation which is happening with WEEE and REACH all produce challenges in the materi- als that people can use, so when you change to a material, you effectively have to change or modify your process. So as the legislation carries on and the component design carries on, the challenges for people who assemble the product and test the product become more and more. Las Marias: thank you very much for your time, Keith. Bryant: Thank you, Stephen. SmT SmArT GroUP: THe GUIDInG InFLUence In THe eLecTronIcS InDUSTry FeATure inTerview