An overview of manufacturing BGA technology

Ball Grid Array (BGA) technology is one ofthe leading edge technologies in surface mount manufacturing. The driving force behind the advancement of BGA technology is the lead spacing of standard surface mount devices. As lead pitches drop below 20 mil, manufacturing becomes exponentially more difficult. BGA technology provides the same I/O count in the same body size with a significant increase in pitch. Manufacturing BGAs is comparable to standard surface mount device manufacturing. Standard equipment for paste application, placement, reflow and cleaning will work with first generation BGAs. The paper discusses BGA manufacturing using 20 mil SMT manufacturing as a baseline.