Interesting, never knew this is why BGA is called Ball Grid Array. Also never seen the equipment used to make or repair them. And I didn't know this type of connection was that failure prone. One would assume one perk of BGA besides value would be a solid connection.
Which brings me to my next points and questions.
1. Is it really that cost effective if they can fail like this and it takes that amount of labor to fix them?
2. Is it really worth it for the consumer if they have zero control over it's longevity and have to wait for one to be serviced and hope that if it does go bad, it's still under warranty? You say this is done a lot on RMA, so that doesn't sound good for BGA.
3. How can mere dust degrade joints that are already soldered?
4. Why are BGA chips not given some kind of simple dust sealer around the edge of the chip between chip and board if dust can damage them so easily? Such degradation begs the question whether this type of soldering is even very solid.
I have to say, I am SO turned off by BGA after seeing this. I'd MUCH rather have a socket connection with pins and lever. I'm talking of course about Intel coming out with BGA CPUs on CPU/MB combos soon. I guess all GPUs are BGA though, and you're either lucky, or not. Between this option and your mention of card replacement being very expensive, I can see why a lot of GPU manufacturers since the recession have tried to weasel out of RMAs, and why they often offer refurbs or returns vs new cards. This is a reminder how important it is to buy from a manufacturer that backs their product well.
Well, BGA is (probably) cheaper to manufacture then separate LGA/PGA compatible boards and chips, and it prevents damage to the system in any usual way (shipping, bad packaging, dropped the CPU/something in the socket and messed up the pins). I've gotten Intel boards with the pins messed up and I've gotten a CPU or two with pins bent, and bent CPU pins myself (put bare CPU by itself in a box with other stuff, pins got bent a bit). Though, straightening CPU pins a little is usually simple and easy to do. LGA systems are far harder to work with trying to fix bent pins, but generally don't get bent as easily either, but seem far more fragile, although I suppose the force applied on the pins is rather insignificant spread over many hundreds of points, like people who lay on needles.
Downside is if the board fails, or the chip fails, you got to replace the whole thing. Now you're tossing out a good chip just because it's permanently stuck to a bad board. Or upgrading... now you need a new board and CPU just because you want to upgrade the CPU, but it's stuck to the board forever.
I'd imagine it's good for manufacturers, most consumers don't care, but it irks enthusiasts like us who like to swap hardware around a lot, OC and that sort of thing.
Sidenote: IIRC the new Intel BGA systems are supposedly only for low power embedded solutions like we already have anyway. For mainstream systems, HEDT, servers and that sort of thing I think they're using the current LGA system.
