What to Know About BGA Components

15 Nov What to Know About BGA Components

SemiPack Services is an electronic manufacturing support service for the semiconductor industry. We specialize in supporting high-mix, low-volume customers. As an AS9100:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 certified company, we provide several BGA support services, including restoration and reballing. This article will help you better understand what BGA components are, the types available, and their properties.

What is a BGA Package?

A ball grid array, commonly called BGA, is a different approach to connections than that used in more conventional surface mount varieties. While styles such as the quad flat pack (QFP) use the package’s sides for connections, this design leaves limited space for the pins. In this design, pins must be made much smaller and spaced very closely together to deliver the required level of connectivity.

In a ball grid array, on the other hand, the underside of the package is used, where there is a much larger surface area for the connections. In a BGA package, pins are arranged in a grid pattern. Instead of using pins for connectivity, pads with balls of solder are used to facilitate the connection. The BGA device is fitted on a printed circuit board (PCB) using a matching set of copper pads for connectivity.

How Many Types of BGA Are There?

There are primarily three types of BGAs:

• PBGA: A plastic ball grid array typically uses BT resin or glass laminate as the substrate, with plastic as the packaging material. There are two types of solder balls: lead and lead-free. No other solder is required to connect solder balls to the packaging body. PBGA offers excellent electrical performance and is cost-effective, but sensitive to humidity.
• CBGA: Ceramic ball grid arrays have the longest history of all varieties. They feature a multi-layer ceramic substrate, with a metal cover soldered on to protect the chip, pad, and leads. For this BGA variety, high-temperate eutectic solder is used as the ball material. CBGA is capable of high heat dissipation and packaging density but is high cost.
• TBGA: A tape ball grid array is a structure with a hollow cavity. There are two types of chip and substrate interconnections: lead bonding and inverted solder bonding. TBGA costs the least of all options and offers excellent thermal compatibility with the PCB, but is sensitive to humidity.

Properties of BGA Components

All types of BGA components have several common characteristics. For example, while QFP chips are typically challenging for an operator to visually align and solder, BGA components feature a larger pin pitch that makes these processes much easier. Some other key properties of BGA components include:

• A large I/O lead pitch that enables more I/O count to be held within the same area
• Higher packaging reliability with a lower defect rate of solder joints
• Improved solder joint reliability
• Excellent electrical properties that facilitate excellent frequency merits
• Easy to perform solder paste printing using a stencil
• Better thermal dissipation performance

Additionally, BGA pins are steady, with better flatness than QFP packages. This is because flatness errors can be automatically compensated between the PCB and chip after the solder ball melts. During the soldering process, the tension between solder joints leads to high self-alignment that reduces mounting precision error.

BGA Services from SemiPack

While BGAs are fairly durable, their connections can still loosen over time, especially when subjected to extended use or harsh conditions. SemiPack Services restores BGA performance reliability and eliminates unwanted bridges between connections. Our BGA component reballing and restoration services are IEC TS 62647-4-compliant and adhere to a comprehensive range of industry standards, including J-STD and MIL-STD. To learn more, contact our team or request a quote.