Surface mount EMI/RFI shield clip

A Harwin product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jan 12, 2001

As demand for RFI shielding has risen significantly, the need for an effective way to mount shields has now been addressed by Harwin.

As demand for RFI shielding has risen significantly, the need for an effective way to mount shields has now been addressed by Harwin.

Traditionally, shielding cans are hard soldered to the printed circuit board during assembly, making rework an expensive and time consuming process.

Many applications require components to be "tuned" prior to the shields being fitted, thus adding an expensive manual solder operation to the final cost.

Harwin has recognised that this is a significant issue with many customers and are now pleased to offer the surface mount RFI shield clip as a simple solution to address these issues.

The SM shield clip allows the shielding cans to be fitted and removed several times, allowing rework or tuning, if required with no degradation in performance or risk of damage to the circuit boards.

The clips are supplied in EIA standard tape and reel packaging and can be placed onto the printed circuit boards with any standard surface mount placement machine.

The clips are fitted during the main board assembly process and soldered as any other SMT product, with the clip self centring during reflow on the PCB pad.

This eliminates the additional expense of secondary hand placement soldering operations and ensures optimal alignment.

Once the SM shield clip is placed and soldered onto the printed circuit board, the RFI Shielding can then be fitted into the spring contacts.

The shield clip contacts have been designed to both retain the shield mechanically and also provide effective electrical connection to ground the shielding cans.

When designing this product, Harwin was keen to ensure that the primary requirements of end applications were met as closely as possible.

With this in mind, the RFI shield clip uses very little printed circuit board real estate, can be placed by many high-speed placement machines and offers repeated use with no degradation of performance.