Hi, Colin, There has been considerable discussion about BGA's in this forum, even in the short time since I first tuned in, so you could try picking through the archives. I've collected quite a lot of the correspondence along the, because, like you, I'm relatively new to BGA's, but have heard a lot about the problems associated with them and determined to learn what I can. I can give you some headlines to follow up on, otherwise this posting will become a book, though not in the best-selling range of those produced by the TN 'gurus' . Things to watch for: Flatness of boards to ensure good contact with BGA balls. We use FR4 finished with 150u ins Nickel and 4.5u ins Gold. Uneven solder joints seem to lead to faster stress fractures in the joints themselves. The Above required the use of high melting point solder with a silver content. BGA joints are prone to cracking with temperature variations and vibration. This can be mitigated with the use of a special underfill material. Be careful which you choose though - some are reworkable and others are not; some can be applied before the BGA is fitted to the board (no-flow types) while others are applied after the BGA has been soldered (Flow types). I'm cautious of no-flow types because they have to act as a flux, and there are problems with out-gassing the volatiles that can lead to voids and short-circuits. Large BGA's (over 25 x 25mm) are more difficult to underfill than smaller ones. Achieving good quality, well-formed solder joints with BGA's seems to be something of an art, especially of you don't want to fry the components to death during the soldering process. Careful Thermal Profiling of the board for CR Soldering is essential. Be very aware of partially reflowing BGA solder joints once formed, if/when soldering the second side of the board and/or when wave soldering. It's difficult enough to get BGA joints up to correct soldering temperature without mucking them up again by partial reflowing later in the assembly process. We had some terrible joints caused by this - very coarse grained, poorly shaped and exhibiting all kinds of fissures and land-slip signs that left them peculiarly weak. Better to try and avoid the risk of reflowing these components in the first place, and there seem to be a few techniques for doing this that you can find in the TN archive or by surfing. Not least, match the CTE of the board material as closely as you can to the CTE of the BGA. This lowers the stresses imposed on the BGA joints and makes easier the job of any underfill material you may choose to use. Contact me off-line if there is anything else I can help you with anything else. Pete Duncan Colin Weber <colin.weber@VARI To: [log in to unmask] ANINC.COM> cc: (bcc: DUNCAN Peter/Asst Prin Engr/ST Aero/ST Group) Sent by: TechNet Subject: [TN] BGA Design <[log in to unmask]> 05/04/01 05:28 AM Please respond to "TechNet E-Mail Forum."; Please respond to Colin Weber We are looking at using BGAs for the first time. In particular a 388 pin AMD processor chip, 1mm pitch. I am looking for any tips and comments that can assist in my research into this. From a first glance I don't see that the use of such a device has to be difficult, but these things have a habit of needing certain precautions and design practices. Any help at all would be appreciated. PS: At this point in time it looks as though we will be forced to proceed with the design using Protel99SE. Anyone with experience with such designs and this version of Protel, I'd love to hear from you. Sincerely, Colin Weber Varian Australia Pty Ltd Regards, Colin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------