Giga-snaP™ BGA SMT Adapters
Giga-snaP™ BGA SMT Adapters – Reliable, Easy to plug, High Speed
Giga-snaP™ 0.75, 0.8, 1.0, and 1.27mm pitch BGA Surface Mount Feet Adapter line of products provide an inexpensive and reliable method for attaching BGA chips to target board. 
The product line consists of patented female sockets with machined pins epoxy over-molded into an assembly that matches a particular BGA pattern. The epoxy over-molded female BGA socket is soldered to a PCB using standard soldering methods. A corresponding male pin BGA adapter, to which the user attaches their BGA chip, is plugged into the female socket on the board thus interconnecting the chip and the system is ready to go. The SMT adapters have the same solder ball types as the chips they are emulating. These adapters have less than half of the insertion force of competitive adapters, shorter electrical path for highest speed, and can be solder reflowed numerous times. A complete description and drawings of Giga-snaP™ 0.75, 0.8, 1.0, and 1.27mm pitch BGA Surface Mount Feet Adapters can be found at the tables shown below.
Benefits
Our patented epoxy over-mold method for Giga-snaP™ uses FR4 substrate with pins held by a thin ring of epoxy.The cured epoxy ring effectively seals the pin for optimum solder connection. This solves the PCB fracturing problem and warping issues caused by press fitting pins into a substrate. This also allows us to use FR4 rather than plastic, thus avoiding CTE mismatch. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the BGA SMT female socket exactly matches that of the PCB to which it is attached, thus eliminating failures caused by CTE mismatch. 
Thermal changes from component, heat dissipation or environmental effects will not result in fractured solder ball connections due to the epoxy over molding process.Secondly, the Gig-snaP SMT female sockets can be reflowed at least 3 times while maintaining full integrity of all solder ball connections.Competitive products with pressed pins (without epoxy over molding process) tend to fracture the substrate, which allows the solder ball to flow up the pin and wick away – sometimes on the initial solder attachment.
With ball counts in the 1000-2000 range large forces are normally required when inserting the male device. The force to mate competitive products may exceed 80 pounds (356 Newtons) for a 1000 pin device. The Giga-snaP™ BGA Adapters require less than 1/3rd of the force, only resulting in about 26 pounds (115 Newtons) for the same device.
The electrical path of the Giga-snaP™ BGA SMT foot adapters is a high priority performance issue. The physical length from the point where the top connection point on the male adapter to the solder ball on the female is only 4.5 mm. This is the shortest connection length available in a machined pin and socket combination, thus providing better transmission of high frequency signals.
Ironwood Electronics has the tooling, software, and equipment in place to deliver quickly any array, custom or standard pitch Giga-snaP™ products. Our speed of delivery for BGA SMT adapters sets the pace for the industry.