BGA USAGE IN THE INDUSTRY?

I WORK FOR A SMALL TO MID-SIZE CONTRACT ASSEMBLY HOUSE. WE ARE TRYING TO FIND ANY SURVEYS OR STUDIES DONE ON THE USE OF BGA'S BY COMPANIES ON NEW DESIGNS. THE WAY EVERYBODY'S ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT BGA'S YOU WOULD THINK THAT THERE WILL BE NOTHING EXCEPT BGA'S ON BOARDS 10 YEARS FROM NOW. NONE OF OUR CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME ARE USING ANY BGA'S. ANYWAY, MY MAIN QUESTION HERE IS IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS OF ANY STUDIES OR SURVEYS THAT BREAK DOWN THE MARKET ON PCB DESIGNS AND SHOW THE AMOUNT OF USAGE OF BGA'S IN CURRENT BOARD DESIGNS VERSUS HOW MANY OTHER DESIGNS ARE OUT THERE THAT AREN'T USING ANY BGA'S AT ALL? THIS WOULD BE ESPECIALLY USEFUL IF IT BROKE DOWN THINGS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA SINCE I WOULD NATURALLY ASSUME LESS NEED FOR BGA'S IN OUR WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA AREA AS OPPOSED TO SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA. THIS INFORMATION WOULD GREATLY HELP US FEEL THAT WE ARE TARGETING THE MARKET WHERE WE FEEL WE WOULD PROFIT MOST.

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| I WORK FOR A SMALL TO MID-SIZE CONTRACT ASSEMBLY HOUSE. WE ARE TRYING TO FIND ANY SURVEYS OR STUDIES DONE ON THE USE OF BGA'S BY COMPANIES ON NEW DESIGNS. THE WAY EVERYBODY'S ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT BGA'S YOU WOULD THINK THAT THERE WILL BE NOTHING EXCEPT BGA'S ON BOARDS 10 YEARS FROM NOW. NONE OF OUR CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME ARE USING ANY BGA'S. ANYWAY, MY MAIN QUESTION HERE IS IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS OF ANY STUDIES OR SURVEYS THAT BREAK DOWN THE MARKET ON PCB DESIGNS AND SHOW THE AMOUNT OF USAGE OF BGA'S IN CURRENT BOARD DESIGNS VERSUS HOW MANY OTHER DESIGNS ARE OUT THERE THAT AREN'T USING ANY BGA'S AT ALL? THIS WOULD BE ESPECIALLY USEFUL IF IT BROKE DOWN THINGS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA SINCE I WOULD NATURALLY ASSUME LESS NEED FOR BGA'S IN OUR WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA AREA AS OPPOSED TO SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA. THIS INFORMATION WOULD GREATLY HELP US FEEL THAT WE ARE TARGETING THE MARKET WHERE WE FEEL WE WOULD PROFIT MOST.

Chance, I have several customers in the southwest that are currently inspecting and placing BGA's with 4-10 mil diameter balls which apparently is becoming very common in some designs. No exact numbers or demographics but will check with customer sites to verify if any market reseach has been done in this area. Stay tune for update. Russell Bartley

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| I WORK FOR A SMALL TO MID-SIZE CONTRACT ASSEMBLY HOUSE. WE ARE TRYING TO FIND ANY SURVEYS OR STUDIES DONE ON THE USE OF BGA'S BY COMPANIES ON NEW DESIGNS. THE WAY EVERYBODY'S ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT BGA'S YOU WOULD THINK THAT THERE WILL BE NOTHING EXCEPT BGA'S ON BOARDS 10 YEARS FROM NOW. NONE OF OUR CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME ARE USING ANY BGA'S. ANYWAY, MY MAIN QUESTION HERE IS IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS OF ANY STUDIES OR SURVEYS THAT BREAK DOWN THE MARKET ON PCB DESIGNS AND SHOW THE AMOUNT OF USAGE OF BGA'S IN CURRENT BOARD DESIGNS VERSUS HOW MANY OTHER DESIGNS ARE OUT THERE THAT AREN'T USING ANY BGA'S AT ALL? THIS WOULD BE ESPECIALLY USEFUL IF IT BROKE DOWN THINGS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA SINCE I WOULD NATURALLY ASSUME LESS NEED FOR BGA'S IN OUR WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA AREA AS OPPOSED TO SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA. THIS INFORMATION WOULD GREATLY HELP US FEEL THAT WE ARE TARGETING THE MARKET WHERE WE FEEL WE WOULD PROFIT MOST. | Chance: Angles to consider in assessing the market for assembly services that include BGAs are:

1 Take a big picture, overview of component use trends by looking at:

"SMT" magazine 11/98, page 70 "SMT" magazine 11/98, page 92 "Advanced Packaging" magazine 7/98, page 25

2 Check with these industry forecasters to see if they have a canned study that meets your requirements:

Frost & Sullivan 2525 East Charleston Rd Mountain View, CA 94043 650-961-9000 Fax:5042 www.frost.com IPC 2215 Sanders Rd Northbrook, IL 60062-6135 (847) 509-9700 Fax 9798 www.ipc.org CEERIS International PO Box 939, Old Lyme, CT 06371-0939 USA (860) 434-8740 Fax: 8742 CEERIS@aol.com www.CEERIS.COM PRTM 9 Riverside Rd Weston, MA 02193 781.647.2800 fax 2804 www.prtm.com Electronic Trend Publications 1-800-726-6858 or 1-408-369-7000 www.electronictrendpubs.com

3 Hire an industry forecaster in 2 above to perform a study that meets your requirements, focusing on the regional concerns that you mentioned.

4 Have your marketing people perform a focused market study to determine the future technology requirements of your customers.

Several additional points are:

1 Western Pennsylvania is not a hot bed of electronic design. 2 I know small to mid sized contractors that only do PTH work, and they�re very happy. 3 If your customers do not use BGAs, it's unclear that they will be impressed that you invested in those capabilities, rather than someother technology that might be more important to them. 4 "Customers" of manufacturing activities do not do a good job of forecasting their manufacturing technology requirements. 5 Some cutomers expect their contactors to be on top of manufacturing technology issues.

TTYL

Dave F

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| I WORK FOR A SMALL TO MID-SIZE CONTRACT ASSEMBLY HOUSE. WE ARE TRYING TO FIND ANY SURVEYS OR STUDIES DONE ON THE USE OF BGA'S BY COMPANIES ON NEW DESIGNS. THE WAY EVERYBODY'S ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT BGA'S YOU WOULD THINK THAT THERE WILL BE NOTHING EXCEPT BGA'S ON BOARDS 10 YEARS FROM NOW. NONE OF OUR CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME ARE USING ANY BGA'S. ANYWAY, MY MAIN QUESTION HERE IS IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS OF ANY STUDIES OR SURVEYS THAT BREAK DOWN THE MARKET ON PCB DESIGNS AND SHOW THE AMOUNT OF USAGE OF BGA'S IN CURRENT BOARD DESIGNS VERSUS HOW MANY OTHER DESIGNS ARE OUT THERE THAT AREN'T USING ANY BGA'S AT ALL? THIS WOULD BE ESPECIALLY USEFUL IF IT BROKE DOWN THINGS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA SINCE I WOULD NATURALLY ASSUME LESS NEED FOR BGA'S IN OUR WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA AREA AS OPPOSED TO SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA. THIS INFORMATION WOULD GREATLY HELP US FEEL THAT WE ARE TARGETING THE MARKET WHERE WE FEEL WE WOULD PROFIT MOST. | just a comment... To convert VLSI and MSI chip designs to a different package can be very costly. When you consider the institutionalized package designs (qfp / plcc) it is much cheaper to stay with existing foundry tooling rather than pay to re-tool for a design. Not to mention design, application, testing, thermal dynamics and life cycle generally drive the emergence of a chip package. This is especially true if you're making only 100k units rather than 10 million (ferbies, disk drives, modems etc.) PS. typing in caps is generally considered poor edicate. It is equivalent to YELLING on the web. regards, Dean

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