Folks, Thanks first to all who have been helping. I wish to note this ceramic thing got started three weeks ago when I first came abord. Our very astute EE types told me they were having trouble with their assembly house effecting any type solder joint at all on the ceramic parts. The assembly house belived these parts to be ceramic as well. I didn't start my investigation into the actual parts until a couple of days ago and found what Steve did. The parts are plastic BGA's (CSP's) with an aluminum lid or heat sink. I asked Steve to post some more dirty pics fo the device's top side pointing to the X version as a prototype with which we had all the initial problems as balls falling of as received parts and sticking to "soldered" boards. The images are not the best with my handy littl Intel Play microscope. Wish they made a more serious version. I'd sure snap it up for serious money. Another photo shows the part with the no ball condition. Werner, any more thoughts about this? Yet another photo shows the aluminum lid I crudely separated from the structure with a scalpel. Sure a lot of goop! The interesting photo, to me, is of the die attched to the PCB substrate. I would ask experts out there, like big Joe F., to tell me how this attachment is made. The substrate cuts, as it should, like BT or some other MLB material. Does the die have bumps on it as a flip chip and is it bonded to the substrate via soldering or? What really is intriguing, beyond the initial part ball falling off and not soldering issue, is how hard can it be to solder this little beast? I doubt not too hard at all in a qualified assembly house. Also, if the die is bumped, what about the CTE mismatch between it (Silicon at 3 ppm) and the PCB substrate to which it is mounted? I appreciate your attention, Earl Moon --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------