Modern electronic circuits contain SMA (Surface Mounted Assembly) components (SMDs) almost exclusively to reduce production costs and to decrease the size of the device. Although leaded components are still available, provided they are fairly standard parts, they are nevertheless becoming increasingly harder to obtain. Semiconductor manufacturers typically introduce (new) parts into the market only in SMD packages and then as a developer or hobbyist you have no choice: you have to work with SMD parts. When SMDs started to play in increasingly important role in the 1990's in the electronics industry, many electronics enthusiasts feared that this would be the end of building small production runs or prototypes. But it wasn't all as bad as that. With some patience, some experimenting and the purchase of some new tools it turns out that working with SMD components by hand is quite possible. In the meantime the parts have become even smaller, but this is (still) not a limitation when building a prototype or repairing an electronic circuit. Because of the tiny dimensions of SMD components, many electronics enthusiasts do require stronger glasses, a magnifying lens or even a microscope when working with these smaller parts.
展开▼
