Hand To Machine

It's getting very difficult to hand solder many parts these days. Some people give it a try, but in general, if you're dealing with the really tiny parts or leadless parts, it's just not possible, or at least not  practical.

Sometimes a designer will start out with the idea of hand soldering the board up and then either decide against it when first looking at the raw PCB, or will build one and then decide that it's too much work. That's not a bad thing. You can get more reliable assembly and it keeps me employed. But there are times when a layout designed with hand assembly in mind does not work for machine assembly.

Case in point, this image. Now there are two things wrong here. The first is that the land pattern is for  a smaller part than the actual component. Let's pretend that problem doesn't exist. The other problem is that big via hole in the middle of the pad. When hand soldering parts with a solder pad underneath, like QFNs or QFPs, folks will often put a large hole there. They'll solder the outside connections first. Then, turn the PCB over and stick a soldering iron and some solder in that big via to solder up the pad.

That works more or less for hand soldering, but it's a really bad thing to have a big open via like that when machine assembling parts. The solder will flow down and out the other side. You'll get a mess on the bottom of the PCB and you may get little or no solder on the pad.

So, the moral of this story is that if you've designed your PCB for hand soldering and later send it out for automated assembly, go through the layout and make sure you remove things put in there for hand soldering that aren't conducive to reliable machine assembly.

Duane Benson
Don't fall in...

0.4mm Pitch BGA Redux

I've written about it before, and again here.

When dealing with new technology parts, it's really important to look up all of the manufacturer's component information that is available. I'm going to quote from the Texas Instruments document "PCB Design Guidelines for 0.4mm Package-On-Package (PoP) Packages", Section 10 (PDF page 8)

"Industry reliability studies have revealed that NSMD-type pads are highly recommended for most 0.5mm pitch BGA applications. However, there is a problem with this approach at 0.4mm pitch.

Real-world assembly experiments with the BeagleBoard and the OMAP35x EVM revealed a tendency for solder bridging between pads when NSMD were used. There was insufficient solder mask webbing between the pads to ward off bridging. Therefore, a SMD design was used which resulted in much better assembly yields with no solder bridging."

If you are using a 0.4mm pitch BGA with the balls aligned in a grid (as opposed to staggerd), read the design guidlines from the manufacture before laying out the board.

In a presentation about the development of the Beagleboard, Gerald Coley, Beagleboard designer, notes that their first two runs had non soldermask defined pads resulting in a 10% yield. After another run of PCBs where the pads on the PCB were the same size as the pads on the device and the PCB pads were soldermask defined, their yields went to 96%. And verify that your PCB house does in fact follow your instructions. Some will think they know better and will change the mask layout.

If you are still unsure or think your design will have different requirements, call an applications engineer at the component manufacturer and discuss your project and the layout.

Duane Benson
Trust but verify

Et Tu Embedded Passives

I don't know if or when embedded passives will become the "next big thing" in PCB design, but they are on the way. We, at Screaming Circuits, have been asked about the use of embedded passives a few times.

The purported advantages of the technology lie primarily in the ares of cost reduction and space reduction. You could potentially get your bypass caps much closer to where they need to be as well. The space parameter is pretty obviously an advantage, but the jury is still out on costs. I suspect that at this moment, it's pretty difficult to find a board house that can fabricate a PCB with embedded passives.

If you're not familiar with the concept, capacitors or resistors are built up on the inner copper layers of the substrate. There are a couple different methods used such as plating, printing or thin-film. As shown in the illustration, the resistors and capacitors inside the PCB negate the need to mount them on the outside. I can see rework being a problem if any of those embedded parts has issues.

In terms of assembly, we wouldn't treat such a board any different than any other PCB. If your fab house notes that there are temperature or any other restrictions, let your assembly house know. Beyond that, all the standard rules apply.

Duane Benson
Note from Forbin: Colossus is watching

On Final For Landing on Runway 0805

Keep out areas can be a problem when adapting a CAD component land pattern, but that's not the only potential problem. Sometimes the part may be close, but the footprint is different enough to cause problems, as in the picture on the right.

You can also run into issues that don't necessarily cause PCB assembly problems, but can be expensive none the less.

Say you are designing with a small microcontroller and the schematic symbol and land pattern don't exist for the one you're using, but something close does. Even though the two parts may look like pin for pin replacements, they may have a few differences.

The PIC family has a number of examples of this. For example, the PIC18F2321 and the PIC18F2455 have enough similarities that they look like pin for pin replacements. However, upon closer inspection, you'll find that RC3 exists on the 18F2321, but doesn't on the 18F2455. SCK/SCL and SDI/SDA are in differnt places on the two processors. You could end up with a bunch of jumpers and a PCB re-spin if you just used one land pattern for the other. It pays to check for those little details.

Duane Benson
Turn left at the big tree, and go until you see the creek.

Monsters Under the Bed

Monsters, metaphorically speaking, that is. Take a look at this little land pattern for a TO-263 part. Can you tell me the two main things wrong with this land pattern?

I'll give you a hint. One of the problems is an absolute no-no. The other one could be justified with a low-current application. But then, wouldn't you use a smaller package?

Duane Benson
Green Grow the Traces Ho

Narcissistic Parts

Maybe not completely narcissistic, but at least self-centered. Or, self-centering. Okay, are you lost now? Am I making any sense at all? Well, I'm going to say that it doesn't matter, because the world-revolves around me.

But what I am talking about is parts that will more or less center themselves during the reflow process. Some parts like BGAs and QFNs tend to follow the surface tension of the melted solder and tweak themselves into a more centered position on the land. That's a good thing.

It's not always a good thing though. Sometimes that same surface tension action can work against you. Take this TO-263 part on the left. When it was placed on the land, before reflow, the leads were centered right in their pads like they should be. The big land for the thermal pad is set up a little too high though and once melted, the surface tension from the big thermal pad sucked the part up, nearly dragging it off of the lands for the leads. Bummer days. (Here's another example)

You probably shouldn't leave the part like this, so here's a few suggestions:

You could make the thermal pad smaller so that when the metal tab of the part is centered, the leads will be too. Cooling needs might dictate that you don't reduce the size of the pad though. If that's the case, you could make the bad bigger by extending it down toward the leads, again so the leads will be centered when the body of the part is. You could also mask off the top part of the pad, or put a thin strip of mask as a solder dam. What you're doing is making sure that if and when surface tension moves the part, the leads will end up where they are supposed to.

Duane Benson
It is all about me, you know

0.4mm Pitch BGA Land Patterns

We've been getting more and more questions about laying out the 0.4mm pitch Ti OMAP BGA, as is used in the Beagleboard. As I've written before, some of the rules change at these tiny geometries. The Beagleboard folks discovered that non soldermask defined pads (NSMD) can lead to bridging and poor yields and therefor they recommend soldermask defined (SMD) pads. Check out page 10 in their design guide. If in doubt, or if you're concerned that your set up might be different enough to warrant NSMD pads, I'd suggest you give a Ti Applications engineer a call.

And speaking of the Beagleboard, they just recently reduced the price on their pre-built Beagleboards. Like $125 for the original and $149 for the new xM version. Very nice.

If you've got a 0.4mm BGA part from a differnet manufacturer, check with that particular part manufacturer for the final say. Some 0.4mm pitch parts have a staggered arrangement and in that case, there is enough room center to center to successfully use NSMD pads.

Duane Benson
Joe Cool here.

AT Tiny is Tiny

I just spotted a note on Twitter, from SiliconFarmer, referring to the ATtiny44A coming in a 0.45 mm pitch QFN as well as a 0.5mm pitch MLF package. (In practice, an MLF is the same as a QFN, by the way.) Just in case you actually care, we're on twitter at "pcbassembly".

I've run across a number of 0.4mm BGA packaged parts, but this is the first sub-0.5mm QFN I've seen. Interesting that they have two different sizes of QFN package, one at 4mm x 4mm and the other at 3mm x 3mm. If you're that tight on space, that little 7 square mm of extra open area can make a difference.

Screaming Circuits won't care on the assembly floor. We do plenty of 0.4mm parts so a 0.45 isn't anything new. The most important thing to remember is to use the right footprint. It's easy enough to accidentally use a QFP footprint when you have a QFN (like here). I could see it being even easier to swap for the wrong footprint with this part. Doing so would be bad, most certainly. You might get one or two contacts per side on the right footprint, but that's pretty much as good as none.

Duane Benson
It's like Ice-9. The same, only different.

Little Chippy Challenges

And in terms of "Chippy", in this context, I'm referring to chip-caps and any other tiny little two-connector components. When considering surface mount, most people think of the many-connector parts, like BGAs and QFNs as the challenging components. That's mostly true. However, the little passives can be big bears too if not treated properly.

You can have tombstoning problems. This can be caused by unequal sized pads, unequal sized traces going to the pads or inequality in copper plane in a different layer. A big part on one side can cause tombstoning too - the big part's thermal mass may slow the solder paste melt on one side of the part, leading to  tombstoning.

Via-in-pad is still a problem too. Open vias can lead to unreliable connections, tombstoning or crooked  parts.

Solder mask can cause problems too. Too thick a solder mask can prevent the part from reaching the solder and can cause tombstoning. That thick solder mask can also interfere with out-gassing in the reflow oven which can cause solder ball splatter. (A = okay, B = at risk if mask is too thick).

Duane Benson
It just goes to show you...
It's always something.

Scoopage

I wrote recently about segmenting your solder paste stencils for the big open areas on your QFNs. The idea is that if the entire area is left open, it may end up with too much solder in the heat slug area, causing the part to lift up and not solder properly.

CadstarGuy commented: "Also - when you have the full aperture in the stencil it can tend to drag as it is pasted leaving big gaps in the solder (and excess solder on the screen)." 

That's a very important point to remember. Ironically, leaving the area fully open can lead to either too much solder or not enough solder. Weird. Huh? The solution is the same: segment your stencil layer inside that center pad area.

Duane Benson
Anoid the void!