Top 5 Benefits of Using BGA Re-Balling You Might Not Know
4 min read
Are you a mobile, laptop, tablet, or other electronic components manufacturer? Do you get requests for repairing these products after you have sold them? What are the common issues you find when you inspect the gadget? It fails to switch on, or does it immediately shut down after starting? There could be multiple problems with the device, most of which originate from PCBs or Printed Circuit Boards. Maybe one of its surface-mounted components burned out, conductive paths damaged, or the mainboard got cracked. Besides all these, there is one more possibility – the BGA (Ball Grid Array) chip of your PCB might have become faulty. So, what do you need to do in such cases? You need to leverage BGA Re-balling services.
Now you might be thinking about what BGA re-balling is and why you need to avail of this service, right? So, let’s dive into the details and find the answer to your question.
What is BGA Re-balling?
You can understand BGA re-balling as a simple process in which the technicians replace all the soldered balls on the ball grid array chip with new ones. If you don’t know what Ball Grid Array is, we must tell you that it is a surface-mount package with a grid of metal alloy balls, including lead, copper, silver, and tin. These metal balls are present at the bottom of the packet that operators solder over the printed circuit boards. It helps in establishing a seamless electrical connection for various devices, one of which is microprocessors. Thus, the company that offers BGA Re-balling services is accountable for replacing the lead-free solder balls with the leaded ones when your PCB starts creating display-related problems.
Usually, the printed circuit boards assembled in different electronic components develop this problem when the solder joints between the BGA chip and PCB become loose due to overuse or long-running time. It is the main reason giant tech, and electronic companies that manufacture smartphones, tablets, or laptops need BGA re-balling services to repair their defective items.
Take note that besides the discussed one, there is one more reason your PCB-powered inventory might stop working. When users use their device continuously for more than 2 to 3 hours, the chip starts heating. Hence when the BGA chip becomes hot, it makes the solder balls piping hot as well. That further compels the solder ball to become loose and change its location resulting in one solder ball coming in contact with the other making a solder bridge. If it happens, the chances are high your device’s circuit board will become dead or out of order, ultimately preventing your electronic item from working correctly.
What is a BGA Re-balling Preform?
You can interpret BGA re-balling pre-make as a simple tool that simplifies the process of replacing solder balls on a BGA chip. In other words, it is a solid ball attach solution that technicians prefer to implement when they have to perform BGA re-balling tasks that is an easy, fast, and low-cost technique. With its unique stencil-like design, you can use BGA re-balling to replace the solder balls on a few to several thousand chips. Some pretty common use cases of this preform are small volume runs, quality to reliability testing, prototyping, and BGA re-balling.
How do technicians perform BGA Re-balling tasks?
When you order a BGA re-balling pre-make online, the packet comes with a preform having an array of solder spheres. With that, it also has a water-soluble carrier that technicians easily remove after the reflow process. To rework a BGA chip, first operators need to flow out the BGA component, and then they need to place it against the preform. After they have done that, they put the fixture inside a reflow device which attaches the new array of solder spheres to the water-soluble carrier. Now, all that the re-balling professional needs to do is remove the carrier material with tweezers, and the BGA re-balling process is complete.
What are the benefits of using BGA Re-balling preforms?
- It’s easy
Performing BGA re-balling tasks on printed circuit boards becomes a breeze when you use a preform to complete the process. It takes even less than 10 minutes to learn how to use preform to replace the solder balls on the BGA chip.
- It’s fast
When you need to change the solder balls of a BGA chip, you hardly need more than half an hour to complete the task.
- It’s adaptable
It is easy to work with BGA re-balling when buying it from a trusted electronic component seller online. It doesn’t matter whether you use it with reflow equipment like a convection oven or reflow oven. Besides this, you will also face no issues when using it on different rework stations used for component removal purposes.
- It’s flexible
You can buy a wide variety of preforms if you team up with a leading electronic component ecommerce site. They can create multiple BGA re-balling preforms for you if you provide them with standard GERBER or CAD files. Just make sure that the data you send them to form your part must include the details about the number of solder balls, ball size, package size, and array pattern.
- It needs lower labour costs
A high-quality BGA re-balling preform allows you to create many parts at the same time. You only need over a couple of minutes of extra labour, resulting in low expenses for BGA re-balling.
Final thoughts
We hope you now know the possible issues when your electronic products stop working and how BGA re-balling can help restore them to normal working conditions. If you want to opt for reliable BGA re-balling service in Chicago or nearby places, you can reach out to well-established PCB repair/rework service providers out there.
About Author
