Dye and Pry

The "dye and pry" technique, which relies on a liquid dye that penetrates into existing micro cracks or under open solder balls, is a destructive test method for the revealing of defects on the solder ball to pad interface (see figure below).  After letting the dye dry, the BGA is "pryed" off its PCB and the solder balls are inspected for the presence of the dye which reveals any interfacial connection problem areas.

Even though this is a destructive test, it does provide a very quick method for finding the root cause of grid array soldering problems.

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