Do you know what ME, Reflow and Reballing are?

 In today's article we're going to talk about ME, Reballing and Reballing. What are these acronyms and terms and what do they have to do with the repair world?

Before, I have to explain a few things to you so that you, who still don't have any technical knowledge, don't just hang around. 

 

In our electronic equipment we have several components, which in turn are soldered on a printed circuit board.

 

This solder serves both to fix the component on the board, and to make the connection between all the components that are soldered on the same board. And, this is where it starts to make sense. Because there are several ways to solder these components to the board. And they would be THT , SMD and BGA .

 

Stay calm, I will explain each of these methods to you and from here on the conversation becomes more and more interesting. Let's start at the beginning then.

 

THT =  through-hole or through-hole technology . In this method the component pins are placed on the board through holes in the board and soldering is carried out on the opposite side of the board.

You remembered that you've seen this type of weld, right? Cool as I said at the beginning this is the oldest pattern.

 

SMD =  Surface Mount Device or Surface Mount Device . In this method, the component is soldered on the surface of the board and its terminals are always on the face of the board and no holes are needed.

 

And last but not least;

BGA =  Ball Grid Array or Ball Grid Array . In this method of soldering small lead balls make the soldering process between the component and the plate. It's very similar to the SMD, but if necessary, the solder is under the component and you can't see the solder.

 

Phew!!! Now yes, now that you are familiar with the types of welds, let's get to what really matters.

 

In the BGA welding process , it is very common that after a period of use, due to different weather conditions, this weld, as well as the others, starts to show some flaws . And, logically, your equipment starts to show that something is wrong and its use starts to be harmed.

 

The balls used in soldering can crack or even increase its diameter, making the balls next to it to fail to make contact with the plate and thus cause circuit failures. And, this is where ME , Reflow and Reballing come in .

 

Two of these procedures are used in the diagnosis of your equipment, which can be a notebook , desktop , TV , cell phone and so on. In other words, in some cases using two of these procedures it is possible to already know that it is really a case of cold soldering in the BGA component . So let's understand better.

The ME or Minimal Esquentation consists of heating the BGA chip for a few seconds in order to make the spheres return to make contact with the board with the localized heat, so that the defective equipment can return to work, even if only for a few moments.

 

As I said, this is one of the procedures used only for diagnosis and should never be seen as a solution to the defect of the equipment in question.

 

Reflow is the procedure where the BGA chip is heated to the melting point of the spheres, which then return to make contact between component and plate. It is a procedure a little more precise than the ME , but even so, it should not be used as a definitive repair because, since there is no way to determine the integrity of the spheres, it is very likely that the equipment will show the same defect again.

 

Reballing this is the correct procedure to be applied in equipment that has failures in the BGA chip . In this process, we unsold the chip from the plate and exchanged all the balls.

 

After we have carried out the exchange of all spheres, the chip will be replaced on the board and if the process was carried out with due care, the equipment will return to normal operation.

 

Jeez, now yes, we finally managed to understand these terms used by technicians around the world.

 

In the next article I will describe in more depth and explain in detail the procedures mentioned here. but for that, I need you to tell me in the comments what you think of this article and if you would like more articles like this.

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