Traditional metal screens excel in the printing of many electronic materials on rigid and flexible PCBs. These materials include solder masks and resists, fluxes and solder pastes, and especially conductive inks (silver, carbon, silver chloride), and dielectric inks, both used to form conductive traces, capacitor and resistor elements.

MPM stencil printers pioneered Surface Mount Technology (SMT) solder paste printing and continue to lead the industry in performance and excellence in printing electronic materials, including SMT Solder Paste.

Solder Paste printing, a complex mixture of tiny particles of solder alloy and flux vehicle, is a challenging material to print onto a bare Surface Mount Technology (SMT) PCB.

Stainless steel foil stencils are used to print solder paste and adhesives on bare PCBs. Stencils of varying thickness, and also ‘step’ stencils with varying thicknesses in specific areas for different deposition requirements are used.