[cctalk] Re: Classic computing - earliest years

Jon I've never had great trouble soldering gull wing packages with lead free solder, although these days that only really covers selected Lattice XO2 parts. Equally, jelly beans and passives I don't find problematic with lead free solder : hand assembly using solder paste, preheater, hot air and a limited hot stick rework. And most difficulties seem susceptible to some combination of preheating and the application of flux from a pen or syringe. On a larger scale, assemblers seems capable of working with BGA stuff successfully. My bete noir package is the QFN, which can suffer from dry joints on the corner pins. The Xilinx iSE tools are rather orphaned, I find it easiest to do what is necessary on a legacy W7 host. I suspect I could learn better approaches from you. Currently, I mostly use Zynq, Artix and XO2. The paucity of contemporary devices in "usable" packages (ie PLCC) is a real problem, BGA being an extra level of complexity, so I frequently cheat with modules. Not that modules come without baggage and cost. Martin -----Original Message----- From: Jon Elson via cctalk [mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org] Sent: 17 October 2025 15:23 To: Martin Bishop via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Cc: Jon Elson <elson(a)pico-systems.com> Subject: [cctalk] Re: Classic computing - earliest years On 10/17/25 06:17, Martin Bishop via cctalk wrote: I've been using Xilinx iSE tools on Linux for about a decade. There are some install quirks, especially for running in a 64-bit environment, but they are easy to sort out.  I have stayed with Xilinx 9500XL CPLDs and Spartan 3A FPGAs as they do all I need.  I also like leaded packages as the non-leaded and BGA packages are hard to solder reliably. Jon