Hanover, April 2002 - They are easy to handle, highly functional and the ideal solution for boards with high packing densities: Ball Grid Arrays (BGAs) are more and more becoming the key component for the miniaturization of electronic subassemblies.  Because the connecting pads are no longer visible due to their position, BGAs constitute a real assembly challenge. With its assembly tool ZelPlace BGA, LPKF has now provided a method to place these new components on the board in a precise and reliable way.
 
The core of the machine is a color camera system that uses  mirrors to make the contacts located on the bottom side of the component visible on the monitor.  In addition, the footprint on the board is shown on the screen.  Exact overlap of both images can be achieved with fine detail adjustment devices.  The infinitely variable zoom adjustment enables focussing of extremely small areas up to a size of 50 x 50 mm. Thus ZelPlace BGA is also suitable for assembly with Micro BGA.

With exchangeable nozzles ZelPlace BGA can handle various types of components including TBGA, Micro BGA and different QFP packages. The freely definable positioning and lowering device is based on a two-axis system and both the force and the lowering speed can be adjusted separately. This allows a placement of the BGAs exactly on the appropriate foot prints on the board surface.

ZelPlace BGA has been especially designed for laboratory operations as a complement to the integrated LPKF Rapid PCB Prototyping product line, but it may also be used with any BGA assembly within a fully automatic SMD assembly line in series production.