As I've been informally surveying our customers I've seen two trends - the first 
is that we're well away from bottoming out on the "smaller and quicker" progress 
in component design. My impression is that there's at least three to five years 
of known developments (existing designs to be implemented) and an unknown number 
of years beyond that for the integration of designs not existing yet. I don't 
believe anyone can predict the end to the trend - there are too many unknowns.

The other trend that I've seen that's perhaps more relevant to the question is 
that the older components and designs, and the products based on them, are not 
always being discarded as newer designs come along to replace them. There's 
still plenty of through-hole mnanufacturing going on, and there's an active 
market for used processing machines as well. Stereophiles have even brought back 
glass radio tubes.

The relevant quesion is not whether the equipment will be "obsolete" in three or 
four years, but whether buying new equipment today will allow you to enter 
markets you want to enter or keep those you have. It's a given that the 
equipment will not be leading edge in that time. However, it should still do the 
job it was designed for, and that job will probably still be needed to be done 
by someone somewhere.

A good source for specific information on some pretty remarkable new component 
designs are white papers from Micro SMT in San Jose, which is developing 
leadless components that look like dust to the naked eye, as well as leaded 
packages that replace common quads that are 10 times their size. They can be 
reached at (408) 955-9180. Their white papers also list manufacturers and models 
of machines that can handle their component designs, though I doubt that 
includes the smallest of them. It's primarily their white papers (most other 
developers I've contacted weren't as forthcoming with information as Micro SMT 
was) that I base my estimate of three to four years to fully integrate existing 
designs.

Reed Hopkins
User Development Manager
Metcal, Inc.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: COMPONENT TRENDS
From:    [log in to unmask] at Internet-Mail
Date:    5/25/95  7:49 AM

We are considering replacing our present pick and place machine (10 yrs old) 
with a modern system.  My management is concerned that whatever we purchase 
today might be obsolete in 3-5 years.  The system which I have in mind has the 
capability of placing 15 mil pitch leaded components, 0402s, and BGAs, pretty 
much the latest technologies.

My question is this, does anyone have a grasp on where component trends are 
leading?  Is component packaging going to be smaller still (than 0402s) or a 
different technology altogether which will render my state-of-the-art placement 
system obsolete?  What does the future hold for components and placement 
systems?