Introduction of Stencil

Brief of SMT Stencil:

Using the stencil, you deposit solder paste (a mix of microscopic solder balls and flux) onto all of your pads with one swipe of a squeegee. Next, place all of your components on your board. You do not even have to get it perfect, as the surface tension of the molten solder will pull your components into alignment (if you designed your footprints correctly!). Next, heat the board until the solder paste melts (reflows) using a heat gun, a toaster, or an oven. Since you never directly contact a component with a hot soldering iron tip, there is less chance of damage to the component.

Type of SMT Stencil:

 FRAMED SMT STENCILS: laser-cut solder paste stencils permanently mounted in a stencil frame using a mesh border to tightly stretch the stencil foil taut in the frame
 FRAMELESS SMT STENCILS: referred to as foils are laser cut solder paste stencils designed to work with stencil tensioning systems known as reusable stencil frames
 PROTOTYPE SMT STENCILS: laser cut stencils custom-made from your Gerber or CAD files to match your prototype printed circuit board
 ELECTROFORMED SMT STENCILS: nickel-based, electroform foils permanently mounted in a stencil frame using a mesh border to tightly stretch the stencil foil taut in the frame

Technology of SMT:

SMT technology is the technology that mount components on the surface of PCB fabrication. This is different from pin through-hole and press-fit technology where we mount the components through the body of PCB fabrication. However, in reality, these technologies often use or design concurrent altogether because of their advantages and disadvantages base of the need of applications and availabilities of components. For understand more about SMT we need to understand the process components of this technology. We can distinguish them by the description below: 1) SMT Printing, 2) SMT PCB, 3) SMT Placements, and 4) SMT Reflow. However, for stencil design purpose, we will concentrate on SMT printing and SMT PCB fabrication.