Hi all!

Got a fresh new beast to deal with that I've never seen before...a PGA-to-SMT
socket. When you look at the board, it looks like a BGA would go there, but
actually
it's a PGA socket that is soldered to SMT pads...this is a fairly dense
socket, 50-mil spacing. The history is that the yeilds are terrible, and
99.9% of the time when the assembly doesn't play, it's a solder issue with
the sockets.

I've looked closely at these sockets, and they're not very precise. The pins
are strange too. Each pin is about .145" long, .038" diameter, and have a
little .018" diameter, .005" long nub machined into the end of each
pin...this is what sits on the SMT pad and is soldered to. All the pins are
inserted into a 1-inch square, .062" thick FR4 substrate to form the socket.
Go to:

http://www.stevezeva.homestead.com

To get a look at what I'm about to deal with...I've noticed some coplanarity
issues with the pins too. I've got some ideas to try and deal with that. But
have any of you ever dealt with these little "jewels"? Got any tips?

By the way, these sockets MUST be used, no choice...

-Steve Gregory-