Industry knowledge:
The trend toward smaller, lighter and thinner designs over the years has presented particular challenges for fastener manufacturers. Hardware must fit extremely restrictive design envelopes, parts counts must often be reduced, all while reliable performance in service remains essential. This reality is particularly evident in compact electronic devices, such as cell phones and tablet computers, where the specified hardware to attach components ultimately must help – and not hinder various design and function objectives.
One solution available to designers to address these smaller, lighter, thinner design trends is threaded micro screws. Designers now can select from a variety of micro-screw materials, head styles, and driver types to satisfy and advance application objectives. Threaded micro screws often serve as standard hardware in many applications where size and space matter.
But micro screws were just the beginning of the trend toward extremely small fasteners. A new generation of self-clinching micro fasteners (some threaded and some not) has been introduced offering performance, production, and serviceability advantages.