With the increasing use of chips, many EMS factories have large quantities of damaged BGA chips waiting for repair. If manual BGA soldering is used in such cases, the labor cost will be very high. In such situations, it is necessary to use fully automatic BGA rework stations for repair. Does this mean that manual BGA soldering will be replaced by fully automatic BGA rework stations? Actually, it won’t, because there are still many small repair shops and individual operators who need to use manual BGA soldering.
Traditional repair methods, namely manual BGA soldering, mainly involve the removal and soldering of BGA, QFN, QFP, and other electronic components using tools such as hot air guns and electric soldering irons. Before 2004, when BGA rework stations were not yet popular in China, hot air guns and electric soldering irons were widely used in SMT factories, computer repair shops, and after-sales service points. Generally, BGA rework stations were imported and very expensive. Typically, only foreign-funded enterprises considered using them. In regions such as the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, where domestic enterprises were just starting to develop, the management and production systems were still immature, and various production processes needed improvement and introduction, and production equipment in all departments needed to be updated. Under these circumstances, domestic enterprises struggled and could only rely on cheap labor to support production. Expensive auxiliary equipment was generally not considered. Later, with the rise of domestic BGA equipment manufacturers, domestic enterprises gradually accepted BGA rework equipment, gradually introducing it into production workshops, and improving the rework process. During this process, BGA rework stations significantly improved the success rate of rework soldering, even replacing hot air guns and electric soldering irons, becoming the mainstream rework equipment. BGA rework equipment can perform tasks that ordinary soldering tools cannot, such as optical alignment, and can minimize the deformation of the repaired motherboard and ensure that the BGA is not damaged.
Today, as SMT equipment has developed, automated auxiliary equipment such as ball placement machines and desoldering machines has not yet been widely used. Hot air guns and electric soldering irons, combined with other tools and materials, still play a significant role in the rework field. Compared to manual soldering, the advantages of BGA rework stations are still apparent. In another twenty years, due to the increase in labor costs and the international demand for Industry 4.0, electronics manufacturing companies will urgently seek a cost-saving and automation-enhancing path. At that time, fully automatic BGA rework stations will be widely used.
