SPRACY2 May 2021 TMUX646
| Q | The solder ball tolerance of the small body nFBGA is wider than that of other similar WCSP packages. What is driving this wider tolerance? |
| A | The WCSP has the solder ball mounted directly on the die. The nFBGA balls are mounted on the solder pad of the substrates. This pad size is driven by the solder mask opening so there is slight variation. In addition, the nominal solder ball size for the WCSP is smaller than the NFBGA. This larger ball size and variation in solder pad size are what causes there to be a wider tolerance for the nFBGA solder ball dimension. |
| Q | Will design changes need to be made on the PCB if the package is switched from a WCSP to an nFBGA of the same size? |
| A | No, in most cases, the recommended PCB pad size is the same for both packages so the so the same PCB can be used. |
| Q | The small body nFBGA is slightly higher than the current package solution. Will this be an issue? |
| A | Unless the final product has a strict height restriction, minor differences in package height (± 0.05mm) are not significant. The only impact would be to the pick and place process. The customer would simply need to measure the actual component thickness and adjust the process accordingly. This is standard procedure for component placement setup. |
| Q | Will any changes need to be made to the SMT process to support small body nFBGAs? |
| A | nFBGAs can support both flux dip and paste printing SMT processes. In addition, solder balls used for nFBGAs may be larger than that of other packages so, the stencil aperture will need to be reduced. |
| Q | Are smaller pitch sizes available? |
| A | Currently, 0.4mm is the smallest ball pitch that TI offers for nFBGA packages. Pitch sizes smaller than 0.4mm are not widely used in the industry for BGA packages and would require customization of the customer PCB. |