BGAs with no edge

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Hascrack

Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2022
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10
Location
Texas
I've got quite a few of these BGAs from servers line cards and SAS/SCSI HDD controllers, the fiberglass substrate is super thin and very difficult to remove. What would be the best way to process them? Im thinking it would be to treat them the same as ram chips and to first soak in HCL, wash and dry, then ash and continue down that path. If anyone has found a better way I'd love to know, get 2-3 per server, 1 per SAS/SCSI drive and as many as 5-6 per line card.
 

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I've got coffee cans full of similar waiting on a new lab space and the time to putz around with them.

G'won and break up some examples (Edit: to confirm if* wire exists & if it is gold) - Murphy's Law states when counting our chips instead of gold, aluminum die spiderwire will likely appear.. . At least its fun watching the silvery slivers zoom around in an acid boil resisting HCl until the passive layer explodes : )

So no values inside the green fiber, incinerating them makes a huge mess and tosses a lot of copper & aluminum in the mix to separate out - the spiderwire weld nubs could be razor swept clean to recover that teeny bit if bending them pops the chip away...

I wonder if a partial burn would let the layers crack apart easily...
 
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I've got quite a few of these BGAs from servers line cards and SAS/SCSI HDD controllers, the fiberglass substrate is super thin and very difficult to remove. What would be the best way to process them? Im thinking it would be to treat them the same as ram chips and to first soak in HCL, wash and dry, then ash and continue down that path. If anyone has found a better way I'd love to know, get 2-3 per server, 1 per SAS/SCSI drive and as many as 5-6 per line card.

Incinerations process is really the only way to go. And yes, there will be base metals to deal with as with just about every chip.

Some may suggest the wet ashing process... but trust me, I tried it once and never again....it's not only dangerous but a complete mess to deal with. The cost of the acid/risks make it not worth it, in my opinion....Oh, and you'll still have base metals to deal with.
 
Incinerations process is really the only way to go. And yes, there will be base metals to deal with as with just about every chip.

Some may suggest the wet ashing process... but trust me, I tried it once and never again....it's not only dangerous but a complete mess to deal with. The cost of the acid/risks make it not worth it, in my opinion....Oh, and you'll still have base metals to deal with.
I kind of figured that wet ashing was the only other "viable" option. As I ruled that out immediately I guess I will probably be sticking to incineration on these.
 
I kind of figured that wet ashing was the only other "viable" option. As I ruled that out immediately I guess I will probably be sticking to incineration on these.
I've been performing incineration of Al foil caps to test how much recovery I can get, and it seem the best incineration process is standing a wide cast iron pipe inside a steel drum with a bunch of holes punched through the side, filling the iron pipe with caps, then burning a hot wood fire around it. Everything plastic is reduced to fine carbon powder after an hour of burning it as fast as the fire will take more scrap wood. Just have to make sure not to knock the pipe over when you're tossing wood in.
 
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