Surface mount components are being used extensively these days. Most of the electronic gadgets that we use, such as mobile phones, digital cameras, CD players, LCDs, etc. use surface mount components extensively. A comprehensivetutorial on SMT components is available at Tutorialsweb.com. The contents are given briefly below:

PassiveComponents: Surface mount passive components including resistors, capacitors, and inductors were discussed.

Active Components: Examples of surface mount active components are diodes, Transistors, and ICs. ICs can be further divided in to the following categories:

• SOICs (Small Outline Integrated Circuits)
• SSOP (Shrink Small Outline Package)
• TSSOP (Thin Shrink Small Outline Package)
• SOJ (Small Outline J-leaded package) and others

Surface Mount Integrated circuits that are available in Quad-in-Line include the following:

• QFP (Quad Flat Pack)
• PGA (Pin Grid Array)
• BGA (Ball Grid Array)

Chip-on-Board (COB) is a special IC that uses bare die for bonding on to the PCB. It is commonly used where very high component density is required, and where lead lengths may affect the electrical parameters and thurs the functioning of the circuit.

Please visit the website for complete tutorials on SMTcomponents and SMTAssembly.

My research had led me to believe that the best motherboard choice for my purposes was going to be a VIA EPIA which featured an embedded processor. After talking it over with VIA we dedicided that one of their MII motherboards would be best. Originally I wanted something fanless, like the MII6000, but due to availability we eventually settled on the MII10000. This motherboard features a 1.0 GHz VIA C3/ VIA Eden EBGA processor and the chipset is composed of a VIA CLE266 North Bridge and a VIA VT8235 South Bridge. The motherboard has some extras too, like built-in CF and PCMCIA readers.

Conventional wisdom once stated that building your own PC was more than just a way to create your perfect computer—it was also a lot cheaper than buying a finished system. However, in recent years economies of scale have overturned this truism, making it nearly impossible for the average individual PC builder to beat a big vendor's price when it comes to a basic desktop system.

Don't believe me? Just try building yourself a Pentium-4 based system for less than you'd pay for any basic Dell Dimension PC.

If you want to learn electronics, it's a great place to start. You can also revise for your GCSE here, as it's written to GCSE standard for the year 2000 (so if you're taking it in 1999, forget it. but have a look anyway!). It's suitable for all, and anyone can learn electronics using a combination of this & the other material available on my site. Whether you want to learn as a hobby, are taking a course in it, or just want to brush up on a few points, there should be something here to help you.