SMT-development and production of automotive electronics

Surface-mounting technology, using miniaturized components and fully mechanized insertion, has made a significant contribution to efforts to keep costs down, to improve quality, and to reduce size and weight of automotive electronics. The development of a trip computer for BMW cars shows clearly the improvements when compared with the first computer generation of 1980. There are significant reductions in the area of the printed board, the number of discrete components, the number of ICs, current consumption, and greater quality in the display (alphanumeric LCD vs. 7-segment LED) and adjustment (automated in software vs. hardware trimming)