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Need a 'hard to find' breakout board

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Frozenguy

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Hi and thank you for taking look.

I need a board for my 6 pin PWSON sensor, a Ti HDC1080.

I have found an 8 pin SON breakout board from which I can tell will work. Except what concerns me is that the central pad will pull solder the entire length and may act on the side of the sensor that doesn't cover the central pad.
**broken link removed**

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated.
 
what concerns me is that the central pad will pull solder the entire length and may act on the side of the sensor that doesn't cover the central pad.

Hi FG,

Don't worry,

The central pad is only for heat-sinking and the central pad under the chip is all one connection anyway. The break out board that you link to will be fine.:)

spec

(crossed posts Mike)

HDC1080 datasheet: https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/hdc1080.pdf
 
Thank you for your responses! The news really makes my day. I wasn't quite worried about electrical problems but maybe the solder would pool up on one side and push or pull it while liquefying or solidifying.

I'll put an order in tonight so I can get to work :D Thanks again.
 
Thank you for your responses! The news really makes my day. I wasn't quite worried about electrical problems but maybe the solder would pool up on one side and push or pull it while liquefying or solidifying.

I'll put an order in tonight so I can get to work :D Thanks again.
No problem- these surface mount chips are awkward to work with.

Hope your project turns out well:)

spec
 
Just to make sure before I order them. I reviewed the data sheet from the sensor, and the information of the breadboard and noticed that this is a 0.8mm pitch board but the HDC1080 is 1.0mm pitch. I'm starting to get confused. When looking at other sources, like mbedded.ninja, I see a claim that SON is 0.5mm pitch.
 
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Just to make sure before I order them. I reviewed the data sheet from the sensor, and the information of the breadboard and noticed that this is a 0.8mm pitch board but the HDC1080 is 1.0mm pitch. Does that mean these are incompatible? I figured since it said it was a SON package board, it would have the same pitch.
Hi FG,

I'm no expert in surface mount, but looking at the data available for both items the breakout board is for SON (0.8mm pitch) devices, and the sensor is WSON (1 mm pitch).

So my opinion is that it would be better to get a WSON breakout board.

spec
 
Hi FG,

I'm no expert in surface mount, but looking at the data available for both items the breakout board is for SON (0.8mm pitch) devices, and the sensor is WSON (1 mm pitch).

So my opinion is that it would be better to get a WSON breakout board.

spec

I have just stumbled across a company called Proto Advantage. After searching for WSON with 0 results, it prompted me to search by pin number and pitch. It came back with several including this with a 0.95mm pitch:
https://www.proto-advantage.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3100093{1}1{2}6

It is a DFN - DIP. Not sure the standard difference between DFN and the xSON packages but after reviewing the dimensions, this should work.
The outer pins will be offset by .05mm which is 1/8 of the width of both the pin and board pads.
The center pad is same width but the board's pad is .1mm short.

It's about 35% more expensive, but for now it will work.
 
I have just stumbled across a company called Proto Advantage. After searching for WSON with 0 results, it prompted me to search by pin number and pitch. It came back with several including this with a 0.95mm pitch:
https://www.proto-advantage.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3100093{1}1{2}6

It is a DFN - DIP. Not sure the standard difference between DFN and the xSON packages but after reviewing the dimensions, this should work.
The outer pins will be offset by .05mm which is 1/8 of the width of both the pin and board pads.
The center pad is same width but the board's pad is .1mm short.

It's about 35% more expensive, but for now it will work.

Do you know the semiconductor industry has made an awful mess of packaging, with endless variation and different names for the same package- why I do not know. Surely package #1, #2 .. etc would be much simpler rather than TSOP VSOP-3-6 and so on. Good luck finding a header board with dimensions that match your sensor.

spec
 
Do you know the semiconductor industry has made an awful mess of packaging, with endless variation and different names for the same package- why I do not know. Surely package #1, #2 .. etc would be much simpler rather than TSOP VSOP-3-6 and so on. Good luck finding a header board with dimensions that match your sensor.

spec
Boy, sure I miss the days where all you had to learn was DIPx, wide-DIPx SIPx, where the x was the number of pins........that was about it.

Even the first SMT packages weren't that bad. SOICx, Quad flat packs, etc.

But nowadays it is really, really a big mess.
My recent experience was with a large and expensive 4 layer board with several RGB LEDs. The original RGB LED became unavailable. To find a substitute with equivalent brightness, size and pinout was a major chore.
After reviewing dozens of datasheets, finally found one..........when they were soldered on the board no LED would work and the voltage regulator was overheating.
Turns out for this LED the thermal pad was not electrically isolated like the original one. For better heat conduction, the PWB's thermal pad was connected to the ground plane.
 
Do you know the semiconductor industry has made an awful mess of packaging, with endless variation and different names for the same package- why I do not know. Surely package #1, #2 .. etc would be much simpler rather than TSOP VSOP-3-6 and so on. Good luck finding a header board with dimensions that match your sensor.

spec
I am just now finding out first hand. It's an awful situation. I'm familiar with popular conventional CPU sockets but this was crazy.

I emailed the first company, icbreakout about their insight and said he could make it within a week. They are local to me and would be a great opportunity to support local shops as I hope this idea of mine can make me a little side money.

I'm going to order the dfn board to start playing with the sensors but I think I'll price out some boards with icbreakout and hope we can make something work.
 
Hi FG,

Just a bit of cracker-barrel advice in case you are not aware, those sensors are hellish sensitive to contamination and I think heat, so in your assembly process it would be best to make sure the sensor is protected.

spec
 
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proto-advantage is a nice outfit. I've used them a few times and would again. Search for packages by pitch. There are too many synonyms as spec said.
 
Yeah, I got bit by some 32LFCSP packages. They come in .5 mm pitch and I had layout for standard 32 QFP. Luckily I caught it before getting boards made.
 
Yeah, I got bit by some 32LFCSP packages. They come in .5 mm pitch and I had layout for standard 32 QFP. Luckily I caught it before getting boards made.
I wonder how much money is lost, world-wide, because of the great package debacle in the electronics industry.:eek:

What annoys me is that it is hardly rocket science to clearly and uniquely identify each package.

The other thing that is bad is the increasingly long and arcane component identities. In the early days it was just BC182, 2N3055 etc but, now, component identities , especially MOSFETs, are something like: SPNOGX56-0A1LPbF-OLML-KY (made up) and, to compound the situation, the marking on the device may only be a cryptic, 2L8 or similar.:arghh:

spec
 
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I wonder how much money is lost, world-wide, because of the great package debacle in the electronics industry.:eek:

What annoys me is that it is hardly rocket science to clearly and uniquely identify each package.

The other thing that is bad is the increasingly long and arcane component identities. In the early days it was just BC182, 2N3055 etc but, now, component identities , especially MOSFETs, are something like: SPNOGX56-0A1LPbF-OLML-KY (made up) and, to compound the situation, the marking on the device may only be a cryptic, 2L8 or similar.:arghh:

spec

That is so true. I imagine today's component engineers are earning their keep. In the old days they were more or less just the keepers of the companies internal MPN database. No longer is that true. This also demonstrates how concurrent engineering is key to a companies success...
 
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