Surface mount PCBs (Part 1)

If you look at a circuit board today, you’ll see a beautiful array of surface mount chips and components, including very fine 0.5mm or even 0.4mm leaded devices and BGAs.  Some of these ‘exotic’ devices can contain really advanced technology such as high speed ARM microprocessors, flash and high capacity memory, and FPGAs.  If you’re like me, you’ve looked at these boards and wished that you could produce circuit boards of such fine detail at home, and build projects with these exciting technologies.  Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not as difficult as it looks.

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