BGA Assembly and X-ray Inspection Services

Your product teams can ensure the reliability of the connections in your electronic products by using our ball grid array (BGA) assembly and x-ray inspection services. Sonic Manufacturing provides complete engineering and product support to product designers from our facility in Fremont, California.

Ball Grid Array Assembly and X-ray Services

As a new technique, ball grid array assembly is slowly replacing dual in-line package assembly as the preferred manufacturing method for complex electronic products. It’s important to note that during the assembly, the pads remain under the package and, therefore, aren’t visible to the naked eye.

To ensure the connections are in place and operate reliably, BGA x-ray inspections provide a complete 3D analysis of the product post-assembly. To detect common problems in BGA assemblies, a top-down 2D x-ray system isn’t adequate. The team will need to conduct detailed multilayer x-ray inspections for complete validation of the product.

BGA X-ray Inspections

For package and board assemblies, the BGA connections usually require a close inspection during every stage of the manufacturing process. This provides a series of images of the connections between the PCB and the chipset. With 3D BGA x-ray solutions, a complete 3D picture will allow product designers to visually inspect and identify defects in their connections.

BGA x-ray inspections are an integral part of the process to maintain the integrity and quality of your products. BGA assembly techniques provide many benefits to product designers. As the product design is more complex than traditional assembly techniques, it requires automated x-ray inspections (AXI) to verify the quality of every assembly.

The benefits of BGA assembly techniques include:

• Improved product performance
• Reduction in component sizes
• Smaller physical footprint
• Higher I/O counts

AXI Features for Assemblies

During an AXI process, operators will look for the uniformity of the ball grid arrays. Using BGA x-ray inspections tour technicians can identify any defects and respond accordingly.

Types of defects AXI can detect:

• Obvious faults such as missing balls, bridging, or voids
• Distortion patterns in the bond size and shape
• Known fault signatures identified for a specific soldering process

Defects could arise from excess paste or flux, improper rework, or solder splattering. Using BGA x-ray inspections can highlight issues with your solder mask alignment, errors in component placement, or inconsistent bond distribution.

Sonic Manufacturing’s BGA X-ray Inspection Capabilities

Sonic Manufacturing uses the latest in BGA x-ray inspection technologies to identify defects and ensure the quality of your assemblies.

Our BGA x-ray inspection capabilities include:

• 950 nanometer feature recognition
• Up to 70-degree oblique angle views on an 18” by 16” inspection area
• Comprehensive data logging and reporting capabilities
• Automatic measurement of BGA and dye-voids
• 16-bit image processing with real-time digital x-ray inspection

BGA X-ray Inspections and Advanced Electronic Manufacturing with Sonic Manufacturing

From our headquarters in Fremont, California, Sonic Manufacturing works with Bay Area product teams in San Jose, Silicon Valley, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale. Since 1996, we have helped product designers improve their products for greater reliability and improved quality.

Sonic Manufacturing provides complete contract manufacturing services including engineering support, supply chain management, and product testing. If you need access to industry-leading advanced electronic manufacturing solutions (link to new page), we can help.

For more information about our AXI and BGA X-ray assembly and inspection services, reach out to Sonic Manufacturing for a quote.