A computer aided cost estimation system for BGA/DCA technology

The last decade has seen an increasing demand for smaller and more densely populated printed circuit boards (PCBs). This is partly due to the market driven need within the electronics industry of reducing the size of products while concurrently enhancing their capabilities. Consequently, the electronics packaging industry is relying upon area array technologies such as Ball Grid Array (BGA) and Direct Chip Attach (DCA) as possible replacements for the traditional peripherally leaded surface mount packaging formats. However, since these technologies are still in their nascent stage, the cost benefits obtained from them need to be quantified in an effort to aid in justifying their use. This paper describes a Computer Aided Cost Estimation (CACE) system which has been developed to justify the use of BGA/DCA devices.