5 ms·

Could not find anything on a ball pitch. Can it be suitable for DIY projects?

by sklogic 10y ago

metafex 10y ago
If you have an X-Ray to check if the balls are soldered perfectly, then yes. Put it on the board and off with it in the reflow-oven. Keep in mind, it's only 20x16mm. If not, then you're mostly out of luck, but you can try if you manage to source it. And find some datasheets. And have a driver for it. And... On a more serious note: It would be very nice, if it was possible to design a board with components like this, but it is way to hard and needs way too much equipment and experience to do right.
- sklogic 10y ago
  Well, OSH Park and alike are surprisingly good now, I even had some success recently with an ice40lp WLCS16 package (by pushing well beyond the recommended design constraints), got 1 passable board out of 3. So even a very small ball pitch is somewhat suitable for DIY. What caught my eye in this SSD package is a low ball count, so it might be potentially suitable for DIY even without an expensive hardware. If it's possible to route it on 4 layers without too many small vias it might be a game changer.
  - ChartsNGraffs 10y ago
    Low ball count also means that it is easier for the part to not sit flat when soldered.
unwind 10y ago
I guesstimated it to 0.83 mm from the single image in the article. That's not very small by BGA standards, as far as I know. On the other hand, 1,500 MB/s data and PCIe are quite serious levels of performance by most DIY project standards. :)
- sklogic 10y ago
  Still it might be suitable for a relatively cheap mid range FPGA, even Spartan6. EDIT: actually, no, it's a single lane PCIe3, such clock rates are well beyond the FPGA range. Pity.
  - haneefmubarak 10y ago
    Actually, both Xilinx and Altera offer PCIe v3.0 blocks on their high end FPGAs (Virtex 7/Kintex 7 and Arria 10/Stratix V).
    - sklogic 10y ago
      Yes, of course, but this is already a little bit beyond the DIY budget I hoped for.
      - haneefmubarak 10y ago
        Ah I missed the part about DIY - that sucks though. You seem to be familiar with PCIe 2 though, so now I'm wondering - is there a chip that could convert the 1x PCIe 3 lane into a 2x or 4x PCIe 2 set of lanes? Also, worst case, if you really wanted to use this chip, couldn't you just use the chip with PCIe 2 (albeit slower, but I think revisions of PCIe are supposed to be cross compatible)?
        sklogic 10y ago
        > is there a chip that could convert the 1x PCIe 3 lane into a 2x or 4x PCIe 2 set of lanes? Never heard of such a thing, although it might have been really useful. > couldn't you just use the chip with PCIe 2 Did not even think of this option, sounds interesting. I guess we should wait for the datasheet for this chip to be sure.
      - cottonseed 10y ago
        I made a Kintex 7 board in my homemade reflow oven and 2/2 worked. I had more trouble with the QFN I used for the core power supply than the FPGA.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Could not find anything on a ball pitch. Can it be suitable for DIY projects?

by sklogic 10y ago

Could not find anything on a ball pitch. Can it be suitable for DIY projects?

If you have an X-Ray to check if the balls are soldered perfectly, then yes. Put it on the board and off with it in the reflow-oven. Keep in mind, it's only 20x16mm. If not, then you're mostly out of luck, but you can try if you manage to source it. And find some datasheets. And have a driver for it. And... On a more serious note: It would be very nice, if it was possible to design a board with components like this, but it is way to hard and needs way too much equipment and experience to do right.

sklogic 10y ago
Well, OSH Park and alike are surprisingly good now, I even had some success recently with an ice40lp WLCS16 package (by pushing well beyond the recommended design constraints), got 1 passable board out of 3. So even a very small ball pitch is somewhat suitable for DIY. What caught my eye in this SSD package is a low ball count, so it might be potentially suitable for DIY even without an expensive hardware. If it's possible to route it on 4 layers without too many small vias it might be a game changer.
- ChartsNGraffs 10y ago
  Low ball count also means that it is easier for the part to not sit flat when soldered.

unwind 10y ago

I guesstimated it to 0.83 mm from the single image in the article. That's not very small by BGA standards, as far as I know. On the other hand, 1,500 MB/s data and PCIe are quite serious levels of performance by most DIY project standards. :)

sklogic 10y ago
Still it might be suitable for a relatively cheap mid range FPGA, even Spartan6. EDIT: actually, no, it's a single lane PCIe3, such clock rates are well beyond the FPGA range. Pity.
- haneefmubarak 10y ago
  Actually, both Xilinx and Altera offer PCIe v3.0 blocks on their high end FPGAs (Virtex 7/Kintex 7 and Arria 10/Stratix V).
  - sklogic 10y ago
    Yes, of course, but this is already a little bit beyond the DIY budget I hoped for.
    - haneefmubarak 10y ago
      Ah I missed the part about DIY - that sucks though. You seem to be familiar with PCIe 2 though, so now I'm wondering - is there a chip that could convert the 1x PCIe 3 lane into a 2x or 4x PCIe 2 set of lanes? Also, worst case, if you really wanted to use this chip, couldn't you just use the chip with PCIe 2 (albeit slower, but I think revisions of PCIe are supposed to be cross compatible)?
      - sklogic 10y ago
        > is there a chip that could convert the 1x PCIe 3 lane into a 2x or 4x PCIe 2 set of lanes? Never heard of such a thing, although it might have been really useful. > couldn't you just use the chip with PCIe 2 Did not even think of this option, sounds interesting. I guess we should wait for the datasheet for this chip to be sure.
    - cottonseed 10y ago
      I made a Kintex 7 board in my homemade reflow oven and 2/2 worked. I had more trouble with the QFN I used for the core power supply than the FPGA.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]