Cheapest TQFP-100 packages - For aligning Pick and Place Machines.

[mrpackethead]

Aligning a Pick and Place machine can be quite a nightmare, and you need to repeated placemetns to check and veritfy that everytnign is good.  It gets more critical the bigger the parts are, as small rotatonal shifts can result in big misplacments.

I'm looking to buy the lowest cost TQFP-100 packages, preferably 0.5mm pitched.. I dont' care what they are,  they are only intended for testing the PnP.. using $10 microprocessors is an expensive way to do it.

Any suggestions

[sleemanj]

Aliexpress, search TQFP100, Free Shipping, sort by price ascending.  About $1.30 USD/ea is the cheapest.  Sort by price descending to see larger lots, but again looks like about 1.30/piece is about the limit.

[alex89]

You can buy dummy components, these are made for soldering practice and are very cheap.

[BrianHG]

This is the cheapest I've seen:
http://www.semiconductorstore.com/cart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=57688&utm_source=findchips&utm_medium=fccpcref&utm_campaign=SFFCOC&utm_term=LAMXO256C-3TN100E
Digikey also sells them...

I wonder what you can do with an automotive grade $1.98 100 pin PLD with internal flash?

[james_s]

These are even cheaper, they're actually useful parts assuming they're usable and not fake. If they are fake that's even better for this application.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IC-EPM240T100C5N-TQFP100-ALTERA-NEW-GOOD-QUALITY-/351494421419?

[calexanian]

I like how they say "Good" quality. If those are real passed QC chips I would be shocked! Perfect for your purposes though. You have to be careful the pins are not tarnished or some other such thing. Could give you false negative results in your placement and soldering tests or something.

[james_s]

You can never tell with that Chinese stuff, I've gotten junk and I've gotten stuff that was just fine. I have a bunch of little Altera FPGA dev boards that cost less than the bare IC from US distributors and they work just fine. I suspect the chips used on those are surplus genuine parts, no way to know with these. They're cheap enough that you could buy a couple and evaluate their suitability..

[mrpackethead]

Thanks.. did'tn even think about my good freind aliexpress..    Just bought 30 pces of EPM3128ATC100 EPM3128ATC100-10N TQFP100 for $30USD includ shipping.  Perfect.. :-)

[Kjelt]

You can buy dummy components, these are made for soldering practice and are very cheap.

Yes google at the name "Amkor" and place an "A-" in front of the packagename and you find the dummy components of this firm.
"Amkor A-TQFP100"
I am not sure if they are cheaper than obsolete components