Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
The changing practices of many large contract electronic manufacturers (CEMs) is making the reduction of passive component count on PCBs a top priority for most manufacturers.
“The move to CEMs has seen the cost per placement of components escalate,” said Jim Rieley, sales director at BI Technologies, which is part of the TT Group.
“The cost of placing components on PCBs at the CEM can be as much as ten cents per component,” said Rieley.
While it is not untypical to have as many as 3,000 chip resistors on a PCB, the incentive to cut component count by using resistor and capacitor arrays is enormous.
Rieley said he is seeing increased demand for BI’s range of thick-film resistor and capacitor arrays as a result. The UK-based supplier is also working on a new type of filter array which include the inductor as well as capacitor and resistor in a thick-film device. “It is not easy but we are getting there,” said Rieley.
One example Rieley gave was a set-top box designed by Thomson of France where a dollar was removed from the cost of the board by the use of BI’s RC6 resistor/capacitor arrays.
“Cost-down is the buzz word at the moment,” said Rieley.
