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DIY - Soldering BGA IC on PCB

By allankliu
Created 10/08/2008 - 04:51

Hardware BGA PCB SMT soldering

This is a DIY project - Soldering BGA IC on PCB

More and more devices are shipped in small factor form packages like QFP and BGA. Some
designers still prefer the traditional DIP/SO package. It is obviously that the DIP ICs will be
hardly available in future designs. Not only the microcontrollers and microprocessors, but
supplementary ICs as well employ BGA package for smaller size and better heat dissipation.
Even on the amateur electronics design, more and more components come from second
hand devices such as mobile phones and portable equipments. We can not ignore the
industry trend anyhow.

I used to ask for help to one partner of mine who have the expensive production facilities to
solder BGA ICs. However I have to align with his production schedule and it takes time and
increases the budget. I have to find my own way. Is it possible to solder it by myself? Yes, but
with some limitation.

In order to mount BGA IC on the PCB manually, we must prepare a table-vice, two hot air
heaters, optional infra-red thermometer and camera. The table-vice is used for holding the
PCB, the hot air heaters are used as the soldering irons for both sides. The infra-read
thermometer and camera are used for temperature monitoring and visual inspection.

1 din 2 09.10.2008 18:32

DIY - Soldering BGA IC on PCB http://dev.emcelettronica.com/print/51983

First, hold the blank PCB firmly with the table-vice. Then adjust the camera
to have the horizontal side view of BGA balls. Someone may raise questions
about how to align the BGA chip on the BGA pads. Do not worry, if you align
it with silkscreen layer correctly, the BGA balls will be self-aligned with BGA
pads during the heating and soldering process. You can see it via the
camera later.

Now point both hot air heaters to top and bottom sides of the PCB. Set the temperature of
heaters to 300 degree Celsius and turn them on. Here the temperature setup depends on
your experiences of different type, size, and IC temperature limitation.

Now, please point infrared thermometer to the BGA chip, and monitor the camera to check if
the solder balls are melting down or not. You can not overheat the BGA chip, while make
sure all solder balls are perfectly melting and soldering to the PCB pads.

If possible, please, spread the soldering flux on the pads or process your PCB with solder
leveling method before mounting BGA on it.

The limitation is the number of BGA solder balls and size of the package. This manual
soldering approach is not suitable for big BGA package. The bigger is the BGA package the
higher are the failure possibilities.

I know some guys can remove the BGA chip from PCB, remove the remaining balls, add new
balls to the chip and mount it on another board. However it is enough for me so far, unless I
have only one sample IC during development. Removing BGA from a complete PCB will
possibly damage other parts on board. So I only suggest you manually mount BGA on a new
blank board before any other components get mounted.

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Source URL: http://dev.emcelettronica.com/diy-soldering-bga-ic-pcb

2 din 2 09.10.2008 18:32