EMS/PCB(A) assembler which can add BGA balls to PCB/PCBA? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: tusisma
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 11:44:23 am
content: Hi all,I would like to create my own PCBA with BGA balls, but I can't find any manufacturers which have "Adding BGA balls" as a service.Ball dia.:0.4mmBall pitch: 0.8mmHope anyone can help me

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 01:16:57 pm
content: Not going to work. Buy a bottle of balls and a reballing toolkit.PCB manufacturers don't do this. A board assembler can do it.

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 02:20:29 pm
content: It's not a standard board assembler capability or offering either. BGAs are for integrated circuits, reliably flat densely populated devices that are then transported in nice sealed protective packaging until placement. Using no balls at all would give you an LGA which would be less hassle but still very reliant on two very parallel mating surfaces throughout the mating/welding processIf you want buckets of IO connectivity in a small space use something like a DIMM slot or the connectors on the Raspberry Pi compute module.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 05:10:38 pm
content: Quote from: SMTech on July 21, 2022, 02:20:29 pmmost of them have rework abilities : take bga off, clean but new bga on. if you have a rework station for bga you can do reballing without much of an investment. get a set of stencils and a bottle of balls

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 10:08:40 pm
content: Yes but that's not a production process its a rework process, with the extra skills, equipment costs and all that comes with that, so you could do it, but should you and at what scale? And plenty of assemblers might choose to outsource that depending on how much BGA work they actually do, we still do none. Are talking a few or 100's / 1000's of boards tho' ?However with some googling you can buy solder ball preforms in tape and reel to pick and place*, or even "printed" on apparently ->https://www.indium.com/blog/theory-of-ball-drop-sphere-placement.phpso I think part of your issue could be a mix of manufacture knowledge and capability. If you pointed an assembler at possible solutions they might try something new.* This might mean no special equipment at all

author: exmadscientist
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 04:49:58 am
content: Adding balls to a PCB is a weird-ass operation that you may or may not be able to find someone to do for you.Reballing a BGA is a standard operation. Any assembly house should either be able to do it or will know someone who can do it. It's labor-intensive enough that they may notwantto do it, but they should beableto. Many, many BGAs were reballed in the days of the lead-free transition. I'm told there are machines that make it much easier (probably the same machines that put the balls on in the first place, actually), but they're not common around here. I have a US contact or two for this but I'd rather not share unless you're desperate as I've heard bad things about them.