Assembly of 0201 Components

As the drive toward miniaturisation in electronic assembly continues, and Surface Mount Technology matures, components become ever smaller and lighter. Although the prevailing sizes in passives were 1206 and 0805 in the 1980’s, these no longer make up the majority of the soldered passives at this time.

Whereas they are only beginning to emerge at the present time, 0201 packages are expected to claim a fair portion of the market in the next few years. With their size of only 0.6 mm by 0.3 mm, and their low mass, these packages allow for considerable reduction of board area and weight with respect to the 0402 package. Figure 1 shows the relative sizes of the component packages ranging from 1206 to 0201.

Apart from the apparent advantages, however, there are also a few other points that must be taken into account when considering implementing 0201 packages into a given process. For one, an 0201 capacitor, for example, cannot have the same capacitance as a larger package, simply because of its size. The maximum capacities for the different packages at this time (this may be subject to change) are shown in figure 2.

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