Industry standards such as EIA-481 and IEC 60286-3 dictate a maximum allowable camber of 1 mm over a 250-mm section of tape.

Polystyrene tapes can exhibit a higher degree of camber than tapes produced from engineered plastics.

Chief ofthese is its susceptibility to warping and bending. In particular, a phe-
nomenon called camber is found in polystyrene carrier tapes.

While polystyrene is a good solution for a large number of com-
ponent packing applications, it does have some drawbacks.

Camber occurs when the carrier tape curves in the X/Y plane, increasing
the risk of rough feeding into SMT equipment and errors during the
pick-and-place operation.