Book helps you resolve BGA-layout issues
by David Marsh -- EDN, 10/2/2008
As a circuit designer who also often lays out quite complex boards, I found the temptation to purchase Charles Pfeil's new book-BGA Breakouts & Routing: Effective Design Methods for Very Large BGAs-irresistible, and I wasn't disappointed. The approximately 160 pages and more than 100 figures within this quality paperback carry a wealth of information that far exceeds what I've amassed during my attempts over the past seven years that I've been designing with BGA (ball-grid-array) packages. And, at approximately $31, this invaluable information comes cheap.
Although Pfeil is engineering director at Mentor's system-design division and the colorful, instructive screenshots that adorn virtually every page originate from his company's products, this is no self-serving, Mentor-driven publicity exercise. Rather, it is a usable resource that tackles PCB (printed-circuit-board) designers' problems as BGA packages become ever denser.
The first two chapters explain BGA-specific concepts, terminology, and packages. In-depth discussions of HDI (high-density-interconnect)-layer stackups, fan-out patterns, and layer-biased breakouts follow. The author concludes with a chapter that explores alternative approaches to routing a 1760-ball device on a 0.8-mm pitch. This exercise gives great insight about how well different approaches may work for you, even with the smaller BGA packages that most designers use.
Second Edition Now Available
This new edition includes more techniques for fanouts, more graphics and depth to better describe the methods. It also includes a chapter that describes the new automatic fanout generation software that applies the regional fanout patterns described in the book. This software is now available in Expedition PCB version 2007.3.
We are now using Amazon.com for printing and distribution of the book and are making it available at our cost, which is now only $23.35. You can order it using this link: BGA Breakouts and Routing