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SMK Toughens Up Those Tiny Micro-USB Connections
An anonymous reader writes "If a gadget ships with a micro-USB port, I see it as a plus because it isn't proprietary — meaning I can easily and cheaply buy replacement cables. But the micro-USB ports aren't the strongest connectors in the world, so if the gadget is expensive (a smartphone) and you accidentally bust the port, you're in trouble. And that's easily done. Japanese manufacturer SMK may have fixed the problem, though, with a new double-strong connector design. They started producing them on Friday, and at an output of 500,000 a month, hopefully they'll be shipping with most new gadgets before long."
The issue is that of the connector itself breaking away from the circuit board as they are soldered directly onto the surface of the board. It is very easily done. Solder doesn't have fantastic mechanical strength and solder pads on PCBs aren't that strong either.
It's not always just to save pennies; a through-hole connector has to go through all of the layers of the board. By using a surface-mount connector you only lose the space on the top layer and can route things in the layers beneath (modulo signal-crosstalk issues).
Through-hole uses a ton of extra space, bot for the component itself and on the PCB, something you don't want in a small device. Plus, SMT is a LOT more resistant to repeated sudden G-loads (e.g. dropping your phone). If you shove your USB cable in like an ape or dangle your phone by it then yes, a through-hole component would probably hold up longer.
If you look at TFA, it seems that the connector actually introduces flex where there wasn't any before.