Solderless Alternatives to Surface Mount Component Attachment

Solder has been the primary method of component attachment since the early days of radio. This tradition carries with it an overhead which becomes increasingly expensive as the degree of miniaturisation increases. Solderless interconnect methods, however, are often overlooked or unfairly discounted as unreliable. Surprisingly, solderless connections can be mechanically superior to and environmentally more robust than their soldered peers. This paper reviews various solderless interconnect techniques for surface mount applications and discusses their relative merits.