Mentor Blogs

Since I have been spending a lot of time researching how to effectively breakout and route large BGAs, my initial posts will be related to designing with BGAs; however, in addition to that topic, I am interested in interactive and automatic routing. BGAs that are difficult to route are either very large (over 1500 pins) or with a very small pitch (less than .8mm). In both cases the most common reason … Read More

BGA

0.5 mm Pitch BGA Routing Solution There is a reasonable solution for via fanout and a routing solution for the 0.5 mm pitch BGA but we need to think outside the box. The board thickness is an important factor because it affects the hole plating aspect ratio. If you use a 1 mm PCB thickness and want to achieve a 7:1 aspect ratio (this is common among all manufacturers) then the smallest hole size … Read More

CAD Library, BGA

The BGA or Ball Grid Array has been around since the 1980’s but the pin pitch started out with 1.5 mm and then quickly went to 1.27 mm (50 mils) for about 15 years. Then in the late 1990’s, the 1 mm pitch BGA was introduced and every couple years a smaller pin pitch was introduced. Today 0.4 mm pitch BGA’s are in every cell phone and 0.3 mm pitch BGA’s are the next generation. … Read More

CAD Library, BGA

I'm curious as how do PCB designers route metric pitch BGA's on a mil grid system or gridless (which consumes memory and CPU)? I can't figure why anyone would use a mil grid system for any PCB CAD library construction or PCB design layout when all the SMT component manufacturers are only producing metric pin pitch packages. This is where we note that all chip resistors and capacitors are dimensioned … Read More

CAD Library, BGA

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! If you thought the presentation on HDI in Expedition PCB was good, this one is even better! Effective BGA Fanout Patterns Selecting the above link will take you to a presentation that condenses the most important aspects of my book “BGA Breakouts and Routing” into 1/2 hour. Normally this presentation takes about 2 hours live; however, I have attempted to provide you … Read More

BGA