What is mining of "SMD IC" at electronics?

Question

IC

Answer 1

Since the rest of the English is a little rough ("at electronics"), I'm going to work from the assumption that "mining" = "meaning".

Surface Mount Device

I swear, these parts should be getting *bigger* as my eyes get older, but alas...

Any of the newer package versions of ICs are called "surface mount". Rather than having legs that poke through holes in the board, these parts lay on top.

For ICs, there are quite a number of packages including several pitch/outline versions with their little legs hanging off the sides, and BGA (ball grid arrays) where all of the contacts are actually made underneath the part (popular for processors and others with a great many connections).

Edit:

Note to tlbs101, below ...

You have my sympathy. I've found a technique that works well for me when manually soldering these buggers.

I learned this one from a fellow in Japan and was amazed at how well it works for parts with "legs" (no good for BGA!). First, tack down two corners of the component so that it can't shift around. Then, "flood" each side of the component with solder. You don't need to get crazy with the solder -- using just enough solder to short all of the pins together on a side is about enough. Then go back with *fine* solder wick to pick up all of the excess, being careful that you've not left enough behind to short between pins. I've been astounded at how well this works, especially when I'm dealing with large surface mount processors with pins on 4 sides.

Answer 2

What C Anderson says is correct:

it stands for Surface Mount Device (Integrated Circuit).

Older, larger parts are generally Through-Hole parts.

I am working on a project at home (as a hobby project), and some of the parts I need are only available as SMD, and some of them are less than 1 millimeter in size. My eyes, too, are not good enough to see to solder these parts without much magnification.

These new tiny SMD parts make iPods, Blackberries, and ultra-thin Cell Phones possible.

.

Answer 3

The magnificent mining operation you are asking about is most likely referring to a recovery program.

There are many companies that specialize is removing the SMD (surface mount device) ICs (Integrated Circuits) for reuse and recycle. These components are sold at discount for reuse in applications and/or SMD assembly training.

They are also sold for recycle since there are precious metals used in the structure of these devices.

Hope that helps!

Answer 4

There is yet another meaning where "mining" is used in conjunction with ICs (usually referred to as data mining):
It is used to determine IC failures (whether SMD or not) and deals with obtaining maximum information from (functional) integrated circuit fail data about the defects that caused the failures.

Answer 5

Your "Check Spelling" feature is: A. A back-sliding Theist who is not listening their Higher Power. B. An Agnostic who hasn't made up its mind as to what is correct. C. An Atheist who has decided that proper spelling is the opiate of the masses. Try another feature for checking the spelling, because you will likely not get the feature to agree with you, whatever your spiritual preference might be!