PCB probing solutions with BGAs

[digital_hw_engineer]

probing bgas

[Digital HW question]:

Just curious what other people are doing out there when probing / testing / verifying PWBs with BGAs. I have seen the PWAs I work on get smaller, making use of blind vias, high density interconnects, fine pitch BGAs.

Way back in the olden days, you could probe a QFP from one device to another and verify setup / hold, etc. Now that BGAs are being used, it is impossible to probe under the device. So how are people testing PWAs using BGAs? How do you verify setup/hold from one FPGA BGA to an SRAM BGA?

 

[bobcat1]

Hi

For prototypeing there is special high cost socket with all signals avaliable

All the best

Bobi

 

[senilicus]

Instead of placing the BGA, place a BGA socket on the board. Then you can place 'devices' like this one **broken link removed** to make all the signals available for probing.

 

[rikie_rizza]

for device testing you can use contactor or burn-in socket design specially for BGA device. Its expensive... very very expensive.

 

[Iouri]

You can also use tectronix P6419 probe, just need to open some copper on PCB

 

[som_raparty]

i think going for a socket is expensive as most designs now go on cost reduction
u make routing in such a way that u have some test points which are accessibleas the routing is in our control, or you can look at the destination point of the signals

bye
som

 

[Joe Black]

BGA chips usually has a JTAG interface so you can use boundary-scan tools to test PCB interconnects. I'd recommend Scanseer software for this purpose. Scanseer can probe and even control pins of any part with JTAG.