Ceramic Ball and Column Grid Arrays

During the 1990s, Ceramic Ball Grid Array (CBGA) and Ceramic Column Grid Array (CCGA) packages moved from development laboratories [1] to volume factory production [2]. The steady growth in the use of these packages has been driven by many factors that fall into one of two major categories: performance or process drivers. These high-interconnection density, surface-mount compatible packages offer many advantages over traditional pinned or peripheral-leaded packages. CBGA and CCGA packages can currently be found in a wide range of applications spanning telecommunications and personal computers to super computers. This chapter serves as a primer on CBGA and CCGA packages. The reasons behind their rise in popularity are explored, including package structure descriptions, range of offerings, established infrastructure and performance attributes. Package interconnection processes are discussed in detail, as are the benefits derived from these packages, as illustrated through several example applications.