SMEMA (Electronics)

SMEMA is an acronym for the Surface Mount Equipment Manufacturers Association. In 1999 they merged with the IPC to form the IPC SMEMA Council. [From Vacuum Tubes to Nanotubes: An Amazing Half Century, Published by the IPC, Edited by Michael L. Martel] One standard they have is for the wiring of communications between Surface mount technology producing machinery such as a Stencil Printer or a Pick and Place Machine on an Electronics production line. This allows the machines including the "bridges" between the two known simply as conveyors to communicate that they are busy, or awaiting a circuit board. The communication only goes sequentially as there is no addressing. Instead the machine's SMEMA cables connect to each other's upstream or downstream plug. The plugs and wires are mulitmate connectors and receptacles consisting of 14 wire connections. However only 4 wires are used for data, while the 8th pin connection is the shielding.

History

Technical

The SMEMA hardware and software standard version as of March 2008 is 1.2. http://smema.ipc.org/smema1.2.pdf]

pecifications

The specifications are for single board transfer systems with conveyors as the transporters. Specifications state that the boards should be moving from Left to Right although the same standard does apply to board transfers going Right to Left. For proper sequencing of boards, one or two signal lines should be used; "Board Available" or "Machine Not Ready"

References