Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Keiichi Shimamaki

Mitsuro Hamuro

Kimiharu Anao

Hirokazu Higuchi

Yoshitsugu Hori

Fumihiko Kaneko

Kenji Ijichi

Tadashi Sato

Takashi Kawamura

A bulk cassette has a container chamber at its rear end, and an outlet port at its front end. A plurality of chips within the container chamber are discharged from the outlet port one by one in an aligned fashion. A chip case is detachably connected to the rear end of the bulk cassette and includes an internal container space within which a plurality of chips can be contained. The chip case has a supply opening at its front end so as to feed the chips from the container space to the container chamber of the bulk cassette. The chip case also has a receiving opening at its rear end so as to feed additional chips into the container space. A closure member is mounted to the rear end of the chip case to open and close the receiving opening. A pipe is inserted into the receiving opening for replenishment of chips.

Chip alignment/feed apparatus

An alignment/feed mechanism includes a container for receiving a plurality of chips, and an outlet port through which the chips are fed one by one in an aligned fashion. A sensor is operable to detect whether the number of the chips within the container is reduced below a predetermined level. If below the level, additional chips are fed from a chip tank into the container through a replenishment line or pipe. The chip tank is located above the alignment/feed mechanism. An on-off valve is disposed in the replenishment line and operable to open the replenishment line in response the sensed result of the sensor and close the replenishment line when a required number of additional chips are fed to the container.

Apparatus for automatically replenishing chips

An electronic parts storage cassette for supplying a plurality of electronic parts to a mounting machine includes a plurality of electronic parts contained in a case body member for storing the electronic parts and an adaptor member to be attached to the mounting machine. The case body member may be formed of a disposable sheet material such as paper.

Electronic parts storage cassette

A mounting arrangement of a chip type component onto a printed circuit board, which includes a chip type component having terminal electrodes at its opposite end portions, and land portions provided on a printed circuit board so as to fix the chip type component on them by soldering through cream type solder applied onto the land portions. The land portions are each formed to have such a length as will not project externally in a longitudinal direction of the chip type component.

Mounting arrangement of chip type component onto printed circuit board

In an electronic component series of the type wherein a plurality of electronic components are distributed in the longitudinal direction of a tape-like receiving member to be retained by the same, a cover tape is heat-sealed to a receiving tape having receiving concavities for receiving the respective electronic components. Stepped portions or protrusions are forned in the receiving tape to define regions not in contact with the cover tape. This restricts the extent of the sealed regions wherein the cover tape is heat-sealed to the receiving tape, such that the sealed regions are substantially constant in width which results in a substantially constant force being required for removing the cover tape from the receiving tape.

Electronic component series

A chip-like electronic component series retains a plurality of chip-like electronic components (2) distributed along a longitudinal direction of a tape (1). The tape (1) is formed with a plurality of cavities (5) distributed in its longitudinal direction, so that the chip-like electronic components are received in respective ones of the cavities. In order to retain the chip-like electronic components in the cavities, the cavities are covered by a cover sheet (3). Each of the cavities comprises a relatively flat receiving portion (7) having a bottom surface (6) extending along the longitudinal direction of the tape and a projecting receiving portion (8) projecting from a part of the bottom surface of the flat receiving portion. With such configuration, the cavities can retain at least two types of chip-like electronic components of different geometry or retain the chip-like electronic components at least in two types of conditions.

Growing community of inventors

Shiga-ken, Japan

Keiichi Shimamaki