Resistors. Potentiometers

The consumption of electronic products continues to intensify, affecting all sectors of our lives, both private and professional, in the fields of household appliances, audiovisual and TV, automobiles, IT, regulation, measurement and telecommunications.

The requirements for resistors and potentiometers have therefore changed significantly:

• increasing miniaturization ;

• surface mounting ;

• large volumes ;

• prices down.

In terms of markets, the worldwide market (excluding Japan) represented 18 billion francs in 1994.

Annual growth in Western Europe is in the region of 1 to 5%, depending on the country, for a market valued at 5 billion francs in 1994.

In particular, we note :

• globalization, not only of manufacturers but also of users, with a growing share of emerging countries such as Taiwan, Malaysia and Mexico, mostly due to relocation;

• the emergence of new high-volume markets (automotive, cell phones);

• a reduction in the differences between professional and consumer electronics, as the same components are often used;

• maintenance of niche markets (e.g. resistive displacement sensors, high-stability resistors used as reference).

On the manufacturers' side, there have also been significant developments:

• a considerable increase in the value of investments in industrialization and automation, in order to reach a global level of competitiveness, particularly for very high-volume markets (e.g. thick-film resistive chips);

• a growing proportion of surface-mounted components (SMDs) (compared with wire-mounted components), with the corollary of higher requirements in terms of temperature resistance, tightness and compactness. Surface-mount components accounted for 35% of the European market for fixed resistors in 1994; on the other hand, in the only market accessible to SMDs, i.e. resistors with power ratings of less than 1 W, the SMD penetration rate is 65%;

• the emergence of advanced manufacturing methods and technologies, such as thin-film deposition, which are fully comparable with the technologies used to manufacture integrated circuits.

The result is a shrinking number of manufacturers, all of whom have been unable to find the financial and industrial resources needed to guarantee their success and even survival in the years ahead....