JP2003077701A - Electronic component and method of manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic component (chip resistor 1) with which adverse effect of marking can be prevented on the chip resistor 1 and on which small letters or symbols can be marked. SOLUTION: A character or symbol is deposited on a surface by an ink-jet technique. An ink 2 contains photo-curing agent, and this photo-curing agent is cured by ultraviolet ray. A recording head 5 used for the ink-jet technique comprises a container 3, ink 2 and piezoelectric element 4. By applying a voltage to the piezoelectric element 4, the ink 2 is discharged from a discharge port 7 and marking is performed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic component such as a chip resistor and a manufacturing method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Marking for electronic parts is performed by screen printing (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-134965).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-94904) and laser marking (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-94904). In the former, the ink that has passed through the opening of the screen opened in the marking shape due to the pressure of the squeegee adheres to the printed material (electronic component) to form the marking-shaped film, and then the film is covered by heating. It is fixed on the printed matter. The latter is for marking characters or symbols by locally heating and removing (evaporating) the surface of the material to be printed with a laser.

[0003]

In the marking by screen printing, the stretch of the screen is caused by repeated use, the deterioration of the printing position accuracy is apt to progress, and the blurring or bleeding of the marking easily occurs depending on the printing conditions. Printing requires skill, the heating of the ink may adversely affect the circuit element characteristics of the electronic component that is the material to be printed, and it is difficult to make the marking clear if the marking characters or symbols are extremely small. There are problems such as that.

Laser marking is difficult to recognize depending on the material of the material to be printed, the material to be printed is inevitably damaged, and extremely small characters are used depending on the material of the material to be printed such as resin or glass. When a mark or a symbol is marked, there is a problem in that the heat propagates to the surroundings and the melting progresses, making it difficult to make the marking clear.

A problem common to both the screen printing marking and the laser marking is that extremely small characters and symbols cannot be marked. In reality, some of the small parts are not marked. This problem becomes an important issue as the miniaturization of electronic components progresses and the markable area is limited. A mounting body made up of a group of parts without markings of a very small number of parts does not cause a big problem, but in the case of a mounting body made up of many parts without markings, it is difficult to check the mounting state. Causes problems such as.

[0006] Therefore, the problem to be solved by the present invention is
It is to provide an electronic component in which small letters and symbols are marked.

[0007]

In order to solve the above problems, the electronic component of the present invention is characterized in that characters or symbols are formed on the surface by an ink jet technique.
The ink is a fluid mixture of a pigment and a dispersant, a fluid mixture of a dye and a solvent, etc., which is colored in the state of a fluid, and which is colored in a process after being applied to a material to be printed. Including things. Ink jet technology is a technology in which ink as a fluid in a container is discharged from a discharge port of the container. The direct driving force of the ejection is, for example, application of a shock to the container by applying a voltage to the piezoelectric element, self-expansion of ink by rapid heating of ink, or vapor generation by phase change.

According to this technique, the diameter of the ejected ink particles can be set to about several tens of μm. for that reason,
It is possible to limit the film deposition area of the printed material due to the scattering of the ink to an extremely narrow area. Therefore, by repeating the film deposition while shifting the film deposition position little by little, it is possible to draw a very thin line, thereby making it possible to mark extremely small characters and symbols. Further, in this case, the speed of the marking operation can be increased by adopting the so-called multiple-dot inkjet method.

Further, the adoption of the ink jet technique has an advantage that it is not necessary to use a conventional screen. That is, conventionally, it is necessary to prepare a screen for each type of marking (each characteristic value when a characteristic value of a circuit element is displayed), and for a chip component or the like using a ceramic substrate, for each rank of the ceramic substrate. The rank of the ceramic substrate is a classification based on a dimensional error due to so-called shrinkage in the process of sintering the ceramic from the state of particles, and is usually divided into ten or more ranks. If the rank is ignored, print position misalignment frequently occurs. From these facts, the adoption of the inkjet technology has an advantage that it is not necessary to manage such a large number of screens. Further, conventional laser marking requires a laser oscillator that is extremely expensive, occupies a large area, and consumes a large amount of power. However, the adoption of inkjet technology has an advantage that a laser oscillator is not required.

In the electronic component of the present invention, it is preferable that the ink contains a photo-curing agent and the curing agent is photo-cured. The photo-curing agent is, for example, an acrylic-urethane resin, an acrylic-epoxy resin, a (meth) acrylic acid ester monomer, or the like. Since these are cured by irradiation with ultraviolet rays or the like, they are cured and fixed without heating after the ink is deposited on the printed material. Therefore, there is an advantage that heating of the ink after the conventional screen printing does not adversely affect the circuit element characteristics of the electronic component that is the printed material.

For example, when the circuit element is a resistance element, the resistance value may change due to heating. This means that when the resistor is formed as a thick film and a trimming groove by a laser or the like is formed in the resistor for adjusting the resistance value, the resistance value change becomes remarkable. This change in resistance value means that the originally intended resistance value range may deviate from that range. If this range is constant, it is not a big problem. The reason is that the initial resistance value adjustment may be performed in anticipation of the change in resistance value. However, the degree to which the resistance value changes due to the heat treatment varies depending on various factors, particularly the trimming groove length and the like. Therefore, the application of the present invention to an electronic component having a resistance element having a trimming groove is particularly applicable. preferable.

Generally, the smaller the resistor size,
The resistance value change due to the heating tends to increase. This tendency is especially noticeable in thick film chip resistors.
The resistance element is smaller than the so-called 1608 type resistance element. Therefore, it can be said that the application of the present invention to an electronic component having a resistance element made of a thick film having a trimming groove and having a resistance element size smaller than that of a resistance element corresponding to 1608 type is particularly preferable.

If the curing by ultraviolet (light) irradiation is not sufficient, some heating may be required, but the heating amount may be smaller than the conventional heating amount. . The reason is that the curing degree of the photocuring agent is considered to be in a state where the curing degree as a whole has advanced. Therefore, there are advantages that the manufacturing cost of the electronic component can be reduced and the adverse effect on the circuit element characteristics due to heating can be reduced. It is considered that the ink in this case requires that the photo-curing agent also has a thermosetting property, or that it contains a thermosetting material in addition to the photo-curing agent.

Further, so-called ink bleeding can be suppressed by irradiating with ultraviolet rays immediately after ink application. As a result, the marking characters and symbols can be made clearer. This is a particularly advantageous effect when the printable area of the printed material is small or when characters such as a large number of strokes are printed. Therefore, depending on the characteristics of the ink, it goes without saying that a method of using ultraviolet irradiation only for preventing ink bleeding and then heating and curing may be used. In addition, this bleeding suppressing effect is an important effect accompanying the adoption of inkjet technology. That is, ink jet technology typically uses inks with much lower viscosities than conventional screen printing methods. Low viscosity inks are more bleeding than high viscosity inks. Therefore, the effect is likely to be exhibited depending on the properties of the ink in the fluid state.

In the case where the electronic component is a composite electronic component, in particular, the application of the above-mentioned configuration utilizing the ink jet technology according to the present invention and a preferable configuration based on it (hereinafter, simply referred to as "the present invention"). You can take advantage. The reason is that it is considered that the composite electronic component has more items to be displayed in the limited area on the surface of the electronic component than the single electronic component that is not composite.
Here, examples of the composite electronic component include a multiple chip resistor, a chip network resistor, a multiple chip capacitor, a chip component in which a capacitor element and a resistance element are connected in series,
A chip component or the like in which a conductor element (jumper element) is connected to a resistance element and / or a capacitor element and / or an inductor element. Generally, it may not be included in the category of composite electronic parts, but it also includes a 3-terminal bypass capacitor. These may require information such as the type of each circuit element, the characteristic value, the front and back of the chip component, the mounting direction on the circuit board, and two or more displays selected from the manufacturer name, model number, and the like. Therefore, it is preferable to apply the present invention when displaying on a limited area of the surface of the electronic component.

In the present invention, it is particularly effective that the outside dimension of the chip-type electronic component is 1 mm or less on one side and 2 mm or less on the other side. Such an electronic component has a very small displayable area. Here, the displayable area is
For example, in a chip component such as a chip resistor, it is a protective coat region. Even if the displayable area becomes small, it may not be a problem if the number of characters or symbols to be displayed is small.
However, usually, a plurality of characters or symbols are attached.
For example, the standard stipulates that the resistance value displayed on the chip resistor is displayed in three digits. Therefore, when the number of display characters or symbols is A, the long side of the displayable area is B, and the short side of the displayable area is C, both B / A and C are approximately 0.4.
It can be said that the application of the present invention is preferable when it is less than or equal to mm. However, this also depends on the type of characters used. For example, it is possible to treat all alphabets and numbers as the same as the above numbers, but it is impossible to identify katakana, hiragana, and kanji (including Chinese characters) with a small number of strokes and with a large number of strokes. The above numerical values are assumed to be alphabets and numbers, respectively. When using Kanji with a large number of strokes, the value obtained by multiplying the above number by the ratio of the average number of strokes of alphabets and numbers is applied.

The method of manufacturing an electronic component according to the present invention, which can solve the problems to be solved by the present invention, includes the first step of forming a circuit element on a large insulating substrate surface having vertical and horizontal dividing lines on the surface. A second step of dividing each electronic component unit along the dividing line, and performing the first and second steps in this order, in the manufacturing method of the electronic component, the first step ends. It is characterized by performing a third step of printing characters or symbols on the surface of the electronic component by an inkjet technique at any of the subsequent stages.

The insulating substrate is, for example, a ceramic substrate made of alumina or the like. The dividing line is a dividing groove or the like formed on the surface of the ceramic substrate. It does not matter whether the dividing line is visible or not. For example, when the substrate is divided by a rotating disc cutter or the like, it may not be visible. The circuit elements are formed by thick film / thin film technology such as screen printing or sputtering. Further, any of the steps after the completion of the first step means both before the dividing step, that is, the step in which the individual electronic components can be handled as a unit, or after the dividing step, that is, the step in which the individual electronic components are handled. To do. The advantage of performing the marking before the dividing step is that the printed material is excellent in handleability, the marking operation can be speeded up accordingly, and the positional deviation of the printed material can be prevented as much as possible. On the other hand, an advantage of performing marking after the dividing step is that it is not necessary to perform marking even for a product treated as a defective product after the dividing step, that is, the number of steps can be reduced.

In the method of manufacturing the electronic component of the present invention,
It is preferable to have a fifth step of measuring the circuit element characteristic value after the second step, and to carry out the third step after the fifth step. A product whose circuit element characteristic value deviates from a desired value by inspection is treated as a defective product. By adopting this manufacturing method, there is an advantage that marking is not required for such defective products. In addition, by not marking defective products, there is an advantage that a product that is not marked is also a defective product. The normal inspection process is performed at the final stage of manufacturing electronic components. Therefore, for example, an electronic component that requires a step of plating the terminal portion with solder is marked after the plating step is completed. Therefore, there is no possibility of marking peeling due to contact with the plating solution used in the plating process, friction between dummy balls and electronic components when the plating process is so-called barrel plating, and friction between electronic components. There is.

In a preferred manufacturing method based on the above-mentioned manufacturing method of electronic parts of the present invention, there is a sixth step of packing the electronic parts in an array after the fifth step, and the direction of the letters or symbols is set to the array. It is further preferred to carry out the third step in a corresponding manner. The step of array-packing the electronic parts is, for example, a so-called taping step. In the case of such array packaging, the design effect is increased by aligning the marking directions. In addition, when a mounting body is formed in which a large number of electronic components are mounted by using a mounting machine, etc., the electronic components that are arrayed and packaged such as taping are always mounted in the mounting body, and the marking direction of the mounted electronic components is always constant. There is an advantage that it is convenient for inspections such as visual inspection of the body.

[0021]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. (Embodiment 1) A resistive element is formed by a screen printing technique on a large-sized substrate made of alumina having a large number of dividing grooves vertically and horizontally. Then, a protective layer for protecting the resistance element is formed by an epoxy resin black paste by a screen printing technique. Then paste the paste 200-
Harden by heating at 250 ° C. for several tens of minutes. Thereafter, stress is applied in the opening direction of the dividing groove to divide the dividing groove into individual chip resistors.

Thereafter, barrel plating was performed to form a nickel layer and a solder layer on the exposed surface of the terminal electrode.
The nickel plating conditions are as follows:
Nickel sulfate: nickel chloride: boric acid = 6: 1: 1 (weight ratio), water is added thereto to adjust pH = 4 to 5, and temperature is set to 6
The conditions are such that the dummy balls are mixed and soaked in a plating solution at 0 ° C. for about 2 hours. Also, the solder plating conditions are as follows:
Alkanol sulfonic acid: Stannous alkanol sulfonate: Lead alkanol sulfonate = 25: 25: 1 (weight ratio), and water is added to adjust the pH to 1 to 2, and the temperature is set to 2
It is a condition of immersing in a plating solution at 0 ° C. for about 1 hour while mixing with dummy balls. As a result, a nickel layer is formed on the exposed surface of the terminal, and a solder layer made of a tin-lead alloy is formed on the nickel layer.

After the plating process is completed, each chip resistor is subjected to the inspection process. The measured circuit element characteristic value is a resistance value. Here, only the resistors within the desired resistance value range are selected and arranged and packed.

The array packaging is performed by a known taping operation.
A sheet made of polyethylene is adhered to one surface of a paper material in which a number of holes that are slightly larger than the outside dimension of the resistor are formed, and the chip resistor 1 is protected by resin in the hole of the taping material (tape 6). Insert with the side with the coat facing down. After insertion, a sheet made of transparent polyethylene is adhered to the other surface of the paper material to complete the packing operation. The marking operation is performed after the insertion and before the sheet is attached to the other surface.

The ink 2 used for marking uses fine particles of titanium oxide as a pigment, acrylic-urethane resin and acrylic-epoxy resin as photo-curing agents, and alcohol as a dispersant. Viscosity is 3 to 30 cp
Adjusted to. The ink 2 becomes a white ink, and the marking becomes clear by printing on the black which is the protective coat color of the chip resistor 1.

The marking operation will be described in detail. Figure 3 shows a block diagram of the devices used for marking operations.
It shows in (a). An outline of the operation of the inkjet printing apparatus is shown in FIG. A large number of discharge ports 7 are provided on one surface of the container 3. A corresponding piezoelectric element 4 serving as a driving force for each discharge is attached to each discharge port 7 outside the container 3. By applying a predetermined voltage to each piezoelectric element 4, the container 3 is stimulated according to the volume change of the piezoelectric element 4, and the ink 2 is ejected from the ejection port 7. The distance between the discharge port 7 and the chip resistor 1, which is the material to be printed, was 1.2 mm. The discharge port 7 has a diameter of 40 μm.
And the diameter of the ink 2 particles ejected from it is approximately 60 μm.
m. A heating element is attached to the outside of the container 3 for the purpose of adjusting the viscosity of the ink 2. At the time of use, the ink is heated to some extent to reduce the viscosity of the ink 2 so that the ejection from the ejection port 7 can be made smooth.

Further, it is possible to relatively change the position of the recording head 5 of the ink 2 in which the container 3, the discharge port 7 and the piezoelectric element 4 are integrated, and the chip resistor 1 which is the printing object. By changing the position, the ink 2 is supplied to the material to be printed, so that a character or a graphic can be drawn corresponding to the change in the position.
In this example, since it is difficult to move the printing object for drawing, it is preferable to move the recording head of the ink 2 for drawing while the chip resistor 1 is fixed. The driving force for the movement is preferably a motor. The reason is that the movement amount can be adjusted easily and accurately. A known XY moving device is used as the moving means.
The moving direction of the substrate is indicated by an arrow in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 3A, the information of the character or symbol to be drawn is stored in advance in the storage medium. A marking operator inputs a character or a symbol to be drawn into a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) by an input means. Here, several types of character typefaces can be selected, and the selection enables the assignment of typefaces for each electronic component type. Based on the information, the CPU applies the voltage value applied to the piezoelectric element 4 to the recording head 5 of the ink 2, the application timing, the X-direction movement amount, the Y-direction movement amount, and the movement timing when the movement should be instructed. Command the control circuit and mobile device to connect and to the power source. The control circuit controls the voltage waveform and the like from the power supply. The control circuit and the moving device move the recording head 5 of the ink 2 according to the command, and also apply the voltage to the piezoelectric element 4. The voltage is applied by an alternating current of about 25 kHz, and ink is ejected at the same cycle.

In the taping process, the arrayed chip resistors 1 are sequentially carried. Therefore, it is necessary to match the timing of carrying and the timing of marking operation. Image recognition technology was adopted as a means for this. By recognizing the black color which is the protective coat color of the chip resistor 1 by the image recognition means, the position to be marked is grasped.

Ink is marked by the chip resistor 1
Immediately after coating on the protective coating surface of (1), the marking portion is irradiated with ultraviolet rays for 10 to 15 seconds. As a result, the ink 2 is cured without bleeding. This ultraviolet irradiation may be carried out after bonding a transparent polyethylene sheet. This is because such a sheet easily transmits ultraviolet rays. However, in order to prevent obscuring characters and symbols due to the adhesion of ink before curing to the sheet, and to prevent deterioration of the sheet itself due to irradiation of ultraviolet rays, it should be performed before the adhesion of the sheet as much as possible. Is preferred.

In this example, marking is performed after the plating process. If marking is performed before the plating process, peeling of the marking portion may occur due to contact between the dummy ball and the chip resistor and contact between the chip resistors, in addition to long-time immersion in the acidic solution. Therefore, it is more preferable to carry out the marking after the plating step as in this example.

(Embodiment 2) A resistance element is formed by a screen printing technique on a large-sized substrate made of alumina having a large number of dividing grooves vertically and horizontally. Then, a protective layer for protecting the resistance element is formed by an epoxy resin black paste by a screen printing technique. Then, the paste is heated at 200 to 250 ° C. for several tens of minutes to be cured. After that, marking is performed. The ink used for marking is the same as that used in the first embodiment.

The marking operation will be described in detail. Figure 3 shows a block diagram of the devices used for marking operations.
It shows in (b). An outline of the operation of the inkjet printing apparatus is shown in FIG. The recording head for the ink 2 is the first embodiment.
The same thing was used. In this example, the recording head of the ink 2 is fixed, and the chip resistor 1 before division, which is the printing material, is moved for drawing to perform drawing. The distance between the discharge port 7 and the chip resistor 1, which is the material to be printed, was 1.2 mm. The driving force for the movement is preferably a linear motor. The reason is that the movement amount can be adjusted easily and accurately. A known XY moving device is used as the moving means. In FIG. 3B, the moving direction of the substrate is indicated by an arrow.

The input character or symbol information to be drawn is C
The method in which the PU commands the piezoelectric element 4, the control circuit that can be connected from the power supply, and the moving device are the same as in the first embodiment. When the ink is applied to the protective coating surface of the chip resistor 1 by marking, immediately after that, the marking portion is irradiated with ultraviolet rays for 10 to 15 seconds. As a result, the ink 2 is cured without bleeding. After the ultraviolet irradiation, the solvent of the ink 2 was removed almost completely, and the ink was left for several tens of minutes at 150 ° C. in the atmosphere for the purpose of more complete curing of the ink. Thereafter, stress is applied in the opening direction of the dividing groove to divide the dividing resistor into individual chip resistors 1 along the dividing groove. Then, the same plating process as in the first embodiment is performed.

In this example, since the marking is carried out before the above-mentioned plating step, it is considered that the marking part may be peeled off, and therefore, it was left in the atmosphere at 150 ° C. for several tens of minutes. Probably because of this, no peeling of the marking was observed even after the plating process. This 150 ℃
The heat treatment for dozens of minutes is a heat treatment for curing the ink 2 in the marking by the conventional screen printing method (200
It can be said that this is a process that has a small effect on the circuit element even when compared to (about 250 ° C. for several tens of minutes). The reason was clarified by the difference in the change in the circuit element characteristic value (resistance value) before and after the treatment. That is, in this example, the rate of change in resistance was smaller than that in the conventional example. The inspection process and taping process of the chip resistor after the plating process were performed in the same manner as in the first embodiment.

In the first and second embodiments, the ink jet technique is used only for marking, but it is considered that the ink jet technique can be used for forming the protective material for the circuit element. The material of the ink at that time is, for example, a dye of 2,4-dinitrophenol. This is black, and the white ink which is the marking ink of this example can be used.

The advantageous effects obtained by using the inkjet technique for forming the protective material of the circuit element are similar to the advantageous effects obtained by using the inkjet technique for marking. For example, it is possible to avoid the use of a screen used when a protective substance is formed by conventional screen printing, and when a photocuring agent is used in the ink, it is possible to eliminate a thermal adverse effect on a circuit element to be protected. It is possible. Therefore, the inventions according to claim 2 and claim 8 and other claims that cite them have substantially the same advantageous effects as those obtained by claim 1 and claim 7 and other claims that cite these. Have. Further, the most advantageous effect can be obtained by forming both the marking and the protective substance by the inkjet technique.

When the protective substance is formed into a film by the ink jet technique, the discharge conditions such as the size of the discharge port at the time of marking may be different. That is, at the time of marking, it was preferable to reduce the amount of ink discharged at one time in order to make characters and symbols clear. However, it is preferable in terms of process design that the protective substance can eject a large amount of ink in a short time. That is, it is important to reduce the time required for film formation. Therefore, for that purpose, the ejection port is enlarged and / or the voltage applied to the piezoelectric element in this example is increased. Further, in this example, the distance between the printing material and the discharge port is set to 1.2 mm, but it is 1 to 5 m.
Adjust the value such as m to obtain the most appropriate distance.

When the ink jet technique is used to form the protective material for the circuit element, it is considered that the implementation timing in the first and second embodiments is preferably at least before the plating step. The reason is that the protective material should protect the circuit element from the impact applied to it during the plating process. However, it is considered that such consideration becomes unnecessary by adopting the electroless plating method or the like having a relatively small impact.

In the first and second embodiments, the diameter of the ejection port 7 of the recording head 5 is set to 40 μm.
It has been confirmed that the range can be set to ˜50 μm. In that case, the particle diameter of the ink 2 is 30 to 80 μm.
It will be about.

[0041]

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an electronic component capable of marking even small characters and symbols. Further, by photo-curing the ink, it was possible to suppress the change in the characteristic value due to the heating of the circuit element.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of a first embodiment of the present invention using an inkjet technique.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an example of a second embodiment of the present invention using an inkjet technique.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an apparatus group for performing a marking operation according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1. Chip resistor 2. ink 3. container 4. Piezoelectric element 5. Recording head 6. tape 7. Outlet

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An electronic component, wherein characters or symbols are formed on the surface by an inkjet technique. 2. An electronic component in which a protective material by an inkjet technique is deposited on the surface of a circuit element. 3. The electronic component according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the ink contains a photo-curing agent, and the curing agent is photo-cured. 4. The electronic component according to claim 1, wherein the electronic component is a composite electronic component. 5. A chip-type electronic component has an outer dimension of 1 m on a side.
The electronic component according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein m or less and other sides are 2 mm or less. 6. The electronic component according to claim 1, wherein the circuit element is a resistance element having a trimming groove in a resistor. 7. A first step of forming a circuit element on a large insulating substrate surface having vertical and horizontal dividing lines on the surface, and a second step of dividing each electronic component unit along the dividing line. In the method for manufacturing an electronic component having the first and second steps in this order, a character or a symbol is printed on the surface of the electronic component by an inkjet technique at any stage after the end of the first step. A method of manufacturing an electronic component, comprising performing a third step. 8. A first step of forming a circuit element on a large insulating substrate surface having vertical and horizontal dividing lines on the surface, and a second step of dividing each electronic component unit along the dividing line. In the method for manufacturing an electronic component, which has the first and second steps in this order, a protective material is printed on the surface of the circuit element by an inkjet technique at any stage after the first step. A method of manufacturing an electronic component, which comprises performing the step of. 9. A fifth step of measuring a circuit element characteristic value after the second step, the third and / or fourth step being performed after the fifth step. Item 7 or 8
Manufacturing method of the described electronic component. 10. A sixth step of arranging and packing electronic components after the fifth step, wherein the third step is carried out so that the orientation of the characters or symbols corresponds to the arrangement. Item 10. A method for manufacturing an electronic component according to Item 9.