Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/634491
42 SMT Magazine • February 2016 by Stephen Las Marias i-coNNEcT007 In an interview with I-Connect007, Craig Hunter, senior director for global marketing communications at Vishay Intertechnology Inc. and a member of the SMT Magazine Editori- al Advisory Board, discusses significant changes in the electronics manufacturing industry dur- ing the past decade, persistent challenges, and new technologies that will provide opportuni- ties and growth. Stephen Las Marias: From your perspective, what would you consider the three most significant tech- nology developments in the electronics manufac- turing industry during the past five to ten years? Craig Hunter: Component miniaturization, the increase of battery-backed equipment, and the role of the Internet in helping engineers design and build end products. EfficiEncy, EnErgy and convEniEncE: driving new Solutions and Markets Las Marias: What about challenges? Hunter: In terms of miniaturization, electrical challenges and mechanical challenges when making things smaller have an almost inverse relationship with the size reduction. Simply adding terminations to 0201 products would have been extremely costly 20 years ago. An- other good example is that when placing 0201 components on a PCB, the margin for error represents a much larger area than previous larger case size versions. A 0201 chip capacitor physically occupies an area of 0.65 x 0.3 mm, yet the recommended pad layout is typically 0.9 x 0.6 mm. So, the total area the designer needs to specify is roughly 175% bigger than the spe- cific part. The same calcula- tion for a 0805 chip is just 55% bigger than the part. Craig Hunter Featu re