Stencil printing is the process of depositing solder paste on the printed circuit boards (PCBs) to establish electrical connections. It is immediately followed by the component placement stage.  The equipment and materials used in this stage are stencil, solder paste, and a printer.

The process begins with loading the board into the printer. The internal vision system aligns the stencil to the board, after which the squeegee prints the solder paste. The stencil and board are then separated and unloaded. Then it will be ready for pick and place of components on to the printed circuit board after inspection.

The printing process must be carefully controlled. Misalignment of motion from the reference results in several defects, hence the board must be secured correctly before the process begins.