Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.I never went all the way down to 80 um traces/clearances, but did plenty of 100 um traces/clearances. Also did a ton of 0.8 mm pitch BGAs, infact if you take a look at the project in my signature, you will see 0.8 mm pitch BGA (DDR2) there, and 0.1 mm traces/clearances. This project was specifically designed around JLCPCB 4 layer process (JLC2313 stackup).
So no worries at least for larger pitch BGA. I have another project with 0.65 mm BGA lined up, will see if I can make it work with their process - it will probably be pushing it.
JLC have 0.25mm pad and 0.127mm space as their BGA minima (so basically a 0.4mm pitch device), but that clearly doesn't fit with using the minimum 0.4/0.2 vias and 0.09/0.09 trace and space (and no via-in-pad obviously). The BGA figures don't add up if you plan to actually connect anything to the minimum pads and spacing that they say they can support. You'd need 0.270 between pads just to get a 90um trace out with 90um either side of it, and 0.58 diagonal between pad edges to fit a via in. That will clearly work for 1.0 pitch BGA and for 0.8 pitch BGA if the package isn't too greedy on its pad size and you're prepared to breakout all but the outside pads via vias. ANything smaller and one appears to be in the sticky stuff.
So, with those conflicting capability criteria I'm interested to see what people have managed to get away with and still not get kicked out by JLC's DRC or upgraded to a pricier process.
Thank you. It looked a bit smaller to me. I'll add that to my list of "they can definitely do this" BGA qualifications.I never went all the way down to 80 um traces/clearances, but did plenty of 100 um traces/clearances. Also did a ton of 0.8 mm pitch BGAs, infact if you take a look at the project in my signature, you will see 0.8 mm pitch BGA (DDR2) there, and 0.1 mm traces/clearances. This project was specifically designed around JLCPCB 4 layer process (JLC2313 stackup).
So no worries at least for larger pitch BGA. I have another project with 0.65 mm BGA lined up, will see if I can make it work with their process - it will probably be pushing it.
don't think was a problem with the ink refill, it was no silkscreen on the top layer at all for some pcbs, quoting jlcpcb's message "our engineer made mistake"
i also print a copy of the edge cuts plus solder mask plus top silkscreen layers for the assembly but these pcbs were made to be used in tests and measurements. the silkscreen is essential to set the pins you need for input bits, d0, d1, ... d15, for power supply and output pins
That is worse if it was entirely missing the silkscreen, and not just in some spots as originally stated.
In that case you'd want to get something like a sticky label sheet that you can print the instructions on, then attach to the PCB. So maybe remaking them is easier.
the bad news is that since this was a joint order and there will definitely be two boards missing, we will have to decide which people who had already paid for them, will run out of boards and get their money back.
Nothing to do with JLCPCB, but you don't order a few spare boards? I always order a couple of extras so I have some bare reference boards handy.
I think it is to be expected that the errors of engineers with boards panelized by customers are more frequent than with boards panelized by JLCPCB. In the first case they have to adapt the gerber files to their own software so data preparation is more complex; in the second case the panelization is done directly in their own CAD system so data preparation is, in practice, routine and straightforward.
And of those tens of thousands, were mostly of them identical?
the bad news is that since this was a joint order and there will definitely be two boards missing, we will have to decide which people who had already paid for them, will run out of boards and get their money back.
Nothing to do with JLCPCB, but you don't order a few spare boards? I always order a couple of extras so I have some bare reference boards handy.
I've also had a bunch of 2-layer boards from JLCPCB over the last couple of years, and recently a couple batches of 4-layer. My design rules are well within the JLC capabilities and I've been 100% happy with the boards and stencils.
day 23?: today i received this new message sent from an email address that does not allow replies: "Dear Sir,
Hello,
I was JLC customer. I haven't problem with board quality but have experience with their support. I always buy boards without components. On invoice they show tariff number HS85340090 which corresponds to boards populated with components, and in my country this cause 10% custom fee. When I deal with small orders I don't care about this, but when I have larger order (1000pcb, about 3kusd) I ask them to change tariff number to HS85340011 which is my case (unpopulated board, 1% custom fee). Answer was that this is not possible. After that I change board house and use JLC only for stencils. It was at the beginning of 2021.
day 23?: today i received this new message sent from an email address that does not allow replies: "Dear Sir,
This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon, then apparently they withdraw the offer to remake them but definitely access to remake them but in the remade boards some scratches appear and they remake them again, this time defects appear again and the final offer is to send him the ones in good condition and give him a coupon for the missing ones. Hopefully he will be able to consider the problem over (and with a solution that does not satisfy all the PCBs he needed) 40-50 days after the first defective boards were delivered.Hello,
I was JLC customer. I haven't problem with board quality but have experience with their support. I always buy boards without components. On invoice they show tariff number HS85340090 which corresponds to boards populated with components, and in my country this cause 10% custom fee. When I deal with small orders I don't care about this, but when I have larger order (1000pcb, about 3kusd) I ask them to change tariff number to HS85340011 which is my case (unpopulated board, 1% custom fee). Answer was that this is not possible. After that I change board house and use JLC only for stencils. It was at the beginning of 2021.
Another very interesting incident with a commercial side in the last year.
Regarding customer service you also have to have some luck with them. If they made a mistake, the most dangerous stage is since you report the error to them and when they finally acknowledge it. In the meantime it is best not to chat or write because the previous kindness and apologies mood turns into nasty bigotry in the insistence that you, the customer, are wrong. At this time, for the average customer service employee, the customer is always wrong, their company is the spitting image of god on earth and the company policies and the guidelines in their customer service manual, their commandments. It is not something that happens often, but when it does, you never forget it.
Thank you for sharing.
This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,
This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,
This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.
They offer the coupon knowing that it is possible the customer won't place an order with them again. There is no cost to JLCPCB with this. Remaking the boards does cost them something, and clearly they are working with knife-edge margins and that rework bites them. So they'll do anything to avoid doing it.
This is a very interesting incident. Another lucky customer who has had his first problem with JLCPCB in 2021, they send him boards with PCBs without silkscreen, they offer to remake them or a discount coupon,
This notion of offering a coupon for a discount on the next order is bullshit.
They offer the coupon knowing that it is possible the customer won't place an order with them again. There is no cost to JLCPCB with this. Remaking the boards does cost them something, and clearly they are working with knife-edge margins and that rework bites them. So they'll do anything to avoid doing it.
i have had similar problems. almost three weeks ago i received some pcbs from jlcpcb, part of a joint order from some users of an internet forum for which we paid $24. the boards were panelized, 5 rows by 5 columns, and surprisingly in the upper left area the silkscreen on the top layer of some pcbs was missing. on the bottom layer everything was in order. the pcbs depend on each other and contain dacs and level shifters, there are about 15 connections and the silkscreen on the top layer is essential to know how to connect them.
i double checked it, both my cad application, kicad, some gerber viewers and the jlcpcb's own gerber viewer showed the pcbs without anomalies with silkscreen printing on both sides so i opened a quality complaint.
day 0: pcbs were delivered. quality complaint including description, pictures of the defective boards, screenshots of different gerber viewers and a video from the output of the jlcpcb gerber viewer.
day 3: i receive a response with an apology, an announcement that they are investigating it and will reply at a later date.
day 4: new message asking how many pcbs were affected and the order number printed on the boards, something known since the quality claim was opened.
day 7: new message to ask again for the order number printed on the boards, sent for the second time a few days before. they also told me that there is no found the problem record in their factory side.
i reply by resending the order number printed on the boards.
day 8: asking again for the printed order number, i reply by sending two new photographs of that area of the boards.
day 11: "Sorry for the the delay in replying, after double checking with our engineer and factory, so sorry that our engineer made mistake mentioned silkscreen area, they have found and fixed the production file just now, don't worry about it."
then they offer me two options to choose from: remake the boards or a coupon to use on my next order.
since the order was not just for me and some users' pcbs were missing, i quickly replied by choosing to have them remade. in my message i suggested that if it'd be convenient and advantageous for them, they could send the remade boards along with another order i had placed that same day. that way they could save money on shipping.
day 12: "Sorry for the inconvenience , remaking order can not be combine shipping with in production order at present, due to the custom policy.
So we arrange remaking and reshipping it in a separated shipping, is it ok??"
i reply them that as they wish, they can remake and shipping them separately.
day 14: "Thank you for your reply, since there is no problem for many other small boards, if we remake, all the other ok boards will be remake again.
Please kindly try to use these boards this time and we refund its cost to you, is it acceptable??"
day 20: today. still waiting for an answer but in short, they had offered me two options, remake the boards or a refund using a coupon for my next orders. i chose to remake them, they confirmed they were going to remake and send them to me separately and only two days later, if i do not misinterpret their answers they back out and the option to remake them seems to be unavailable.
@cgroen - can you post a close up of the "BGA" just under C13 and share the ball pitch, pad size, silk screen opening, etc.?
Also, your opinion of how it turned out and if soldering worked fine or not?
Thank you.