Hi Phil! The BGA in question is a small one, only 100-balls, and a plastic part with no heat-sink. It's on the bottomside of the board, and has to go through reflow one more time when the topside is built. As I said, everything looks fine at x-ray...it is inspected pretty closely too. Our customer is the one who is worried about x-ray, not us. They can't get the device to accept a program on some boards, and they are thinking that possibly x-ray damaged the device. Kind regards, -Steve Gregory- Senior Process Engineer LaBarge Incorporated Tulsa, Oklahoma (918) 459-2285 (918) 459-2350 FAX Phillip Bavaro <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: TechNet <[log in to unmask]> 09/27/2005 01:16 PM Please respond to TechNet E-Mail Forum <[log in to unmask]>; Please respond to Phillip Bavaro <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask]@SMTP@Exchange cc: (bcc: Stephen R Gregory/LABARGE) Subject: Re: [TN] X-ray inspection, can it damage devices? Hi Steve, I haven't ever heard of or experienced any issues with an xray inspection system causing damage to a chip. It is hard to believe that xrays momentarily exposed to a chip could cause damage. I have seen some Altera BGAs that have difficulty getting good solder joint reflow due to the heatsinks on top of them, the pwb's 24 layers, and the sheer number of solderballs (1500+). With your .050" copper core, I would look at the thermal reflow and make sure that all the balls on the BGAs have fully collapsed. Was this BGA on the second side or first side reflowed? It is tough sometimes to tell where the problem is if you don't have a board level test in place. Phil Steve Gregory <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Good Mornin' Everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend! I worked Saturday, but had Sunday off. Sat around Sunday and watched the NASCAR race at the "Monster Mile" in Dover Delaware. 20-year old Kyle Busch gave Jimmie Johnson a run for his money finishing second at the green/white/checkered ending....but I digress..... Anyways, we built an assembly here that has a .050" copper core in the center of it...not the same assembly as the one I did my "okie cross-section" on). It is double-sided SMT, and has BGA's on both sides. I'm doing x-ray inspection with a Fein Focus Tiger 160, and in order to penetrate the core and do a proper inspection of the solder joints and spheres of the BGA's, the x-ray power is up around 120-130kv. Our customer received a number of the assemblies from us (without test from us, as they are prototypes and test hasn't been developed yet), and they are having problems with one of the BGA's. It's a 100-ball Max-7000 device from Altera, a CMOS EEPROM, and our customer has been trying to program the device via on-board programming, but some boards wont program. The x-ray inspection turned out fine. All BGA's were inspected using oblique angles, so if there was an open joint, it would have been seen. They are worried that maybe the x-rays may have damaged the device. Altera has told our customer that the x-rays shouldn't hurt the device. I've got a case number started via email in to Altera (since I can't talk to anyone on the phone), asking them myself if x-rays will damage the device. I'm also going to call Fein Focus and talk to them as well. But have any of you ever heard of x-ray damaging BGA's? Kind regards, -Steve Gregory- Senior Process Engineer LaBarge Incorporated Tulsa, Oklahoma (918) 459-2285 (918) 459-2350 FAX __________________________________________________________________ This message may contain information that is privileged and confidential to LaBarge, Inc. It is for use only by the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not copy, use or deliver this message to anyone. 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