QFN10X10-88L

A 10 mm Square Carrying 88 Contacts

The QFN10X10-88L is a QFN package with 88 no-lead contacts on a 10 mm × 10 mm body. The die is attached to a leadframe, wire bonded out to the contact array, then encapsulated in epoxy mould compound, with the lands finishing flush against the underside so nothing stands below the body once it is reflowed onto the board.

Signal-critical designs tend to land here rather than at the higher lead count. Inside the same square, fewer contacts per side leave wider clearance between adjacent lands and more room on the inner layers for the traces that carry them, and the short die-to-board path keeps parasitic inductance and capacitance low enough that the outline itself does not eat into the link budget.

The engineers who specify it are closing a pad ring, fitting a dense board or qualifying a first build, and they ask the same four things: does the die fit, does the heat leave the body, will the line place and reflow it repeatably, and what evidence comes back from qualification. The sections below take those in turn.

Signal Integrity, Heat and Line Behaviour

• Lower parasitics as speeds rise. The contact array sits directly under the die, so the path from bond pad to board copper stays short; reduced parasitic inductance and capacitance leave more headroom in the signal budget.
• Heat leaves through the board. The low-profile body holds the die close to the copper beneath the lands, and the land pattern plus the planes carry heat away — useful for regulators and drivers that run warm for hours.
• Wider spacing than the 96-lead version. Four fewer contacts per side on the same 10 mm body mean a coarser land pitch, which is easier on stencil apertures and kinder to a line already printing near its limit.
• Flat lands, no bent leads. With qfn packaging there are no gull-wing leads to bend, lift or check for coplanarity, so joints form on flat pads and stay uniform across a panel.
• Repeatable at volume. The outline suits pick-and-place and reflow, so cycle time and defect rate hold steady from lot to lot — an advantage that compounds over a long production life.
• One engineering contact. Simulation, build, test and failure analysis sit in the same chain, so a question about your pad ring, warpage or a first-build failure reaches the people who built the part.

Outline Data at a Glance

Choosing 88 Leads Over 96

Same body, four fewer contacts per side

The 10 mm × 10 mm outline is also built with 96 leads, so the decision is rarely about which part is stronger. It comes down to where your pad ring closes and how much routing room the board has left.

When the lower count wins

If the die closes at 88 connections, the extra eight lands on the higher-count version carry nothing and consume pitch you could use. The coarser array is friendlier to a stencil printing near its minimum aperture, gives inner-layer traces more clearance, and asks less of an assembly house that would rather not run a finer print than the design needs.

When to take the 96

Step up when the pad ring genuinely needs the connections, or when a variant of the same die is likely to. Because both parts share the 10 mm body, moving between them later is a board revision rather than a change of footprint — but it is still a revision, so decide with the pad ring in front of you. Send the die layout and your board constraints and we will confirm land pattern and apertures before tooling is cut.

Boards This Outline Suits

• Consumer devices with crowded boards. Compact ICs sharing a multi-layer PCB, where fine-pitch parts have to hold joint quality through an automated line and the layout has no space to give.
• Automotive control modules. Power management ICs inside electronic control modules that see changing loads; the outline keeps the thermal route stable and high-frequency behaviour predictable in tight chassis spaces.
• Power management ICs. Regulators and drivers that run warm for long periods, where board copper does the cooling and a low body keeps the stack short.
• Embedded and high-frequency circuits. Dense architectures that need reliable lead attachment and a short die-to-board path more than they need a wider body.
• Industrial and commercial programs. Products where a well-understood, repeatable package beats a newer format, and where qfn packaging that has been through the same process many times is easier to release than a first-of-its-kind build.

Placement, Print and Reflow

1. Fix the land pattern and stencil first. The body reflows straight onto flat pads, so paste aperture and paste volume — not stand-off — set joint thickness. Lock the pattern against the die and the board before anything is tooled.
2. Set placement around the outline. The 10 mm square gives vision a clean reference and the flat top is a dependable pick surface; keep nozzle and feeder settings identical across builds so placement force does not drift.
3. Build the profile around the board, not the part. With qfn packaging there are no leads to flex, so joint shape follows paste volume and the reflow curve; a symmetric print lets the body centre itself as the paste wets.
4. Inspect what the eye cannot reach. Optical check catches bridging, missing joints and tombstoning around the perimeter, while X-ray shows voiding under the thermal lands — the first place a warm part fails when the print is off.
5. Plan rework before you need it. A hot-air station with board preheat lifts the body cleanly; without preheat, thermal shock damages pads and neighbouring parts long before the air temperature does.

Packing, Floor Life and Baking

Sealed until the line is ready

Parts ship in sealed, desiccant-backed packing with a humidity indicator inside, and the label carries the floor life this outline is rated for. Leave the bag closed until the run actually starts and write the opening date on the reel or tray the moment it is cut — an unmarked reel becomes a guess within a week.

When a bake is needed

If the rated window has passed, or the indicator shows the packing took on moisture, bake to the conditions specified for this outline and record the bake against the lot. Reflowing damp parts to protect a schedule is how lands lift and compound cracks, and that damage usually surfaces at test rather than at the oven.

Storage and handling

Sealed reels and trays belong in a dry cabinet, off floor level and away from solvents or anything that outgasses. Rotate first in, first out so nothing ages at the back of a shelf. Stack trays only to the depth they were shipped at, pick with vacuum tools or clean gloves rather than fingers, and keep loose parts in ESD-safe containers — skin oil on an exposed land is a solderability fault that appears at the printer.

Die Fit and Land Pattern Review

A package is rarely picked from a catalogue page. Our engineers go through your die, interconnect and thermal requirements with your design team before anything is built, and recommend the format and lead count that suit your board, your test plan and your production volume. Because design simulation, manufacturing and reliability testing sit inside one team, feasibility questions and qualification findings come back as answers rather than hand-offs. Drawing on more than 30 years of shared packaging expertise, we also help trace yield and reliability problems back to their root cause — work that is hard to do well unless design and build sit with the same ic packaging supplier.

From Drawing to Shipment

1. Send the design files or an RFQ. Die size, pad ring, target outline, application and the board constraints you are working to are enough to begin — a die layout, drawings or a written requirement all work.
2. Get an engineering answer. We check the outline against the die and the board and come back with feasibility, a package recommendation and the questions that matter. New RFQs and technical questions are answered within 24 hours.
3. Agree the build and the quotation. Once the outline and the process flow are fixed we quote the project; order quantity, lead time and payment terms depend on the build and the schedule, so confirm current figures with your sales contact.
4. Build and qualify the first parts. Prototype units are built, inspected and, where the program needs it, put through reliability assessment before volume is released.
5. Ramp on the same line. As a semiconductor packaging manufacturer we run volume on the equipment that built the prototype, under one quality standard, so nothing is re-qualified between the first parts and the shipment that follows.
6. Ship it out. Shipments move under our One-stop export service.

Questions Engineers Ask

When an outline is being matched to a die, a land pattern and a production line, the questions move past the datasheet quickly. Engineers ask how thin the die can go before die attach and wire bonding become awkward, and how much loop height the mould cap leaves above the wires once the part is encapsulated. They want the pad ring drawn to a land pattern and stencil aperture that suits their printer, and they ask whether a thermal via array under the centre pad is expected or optional for the power they intend to run. Warpage comes up whenever the board is large and the copper unbalanced, because a part that sits flat in the tray can still bow through reflow. Moisture sensitivity level, dry-pack quantity and the bake schedule matter as soon as samples have to travel between sites. Placement questions follow: whether their nozzle and vision set-up will recognise the body and its flat lands at the speed the line runs. Delivery detail rounds it off, covering tape and reel orientation, tray counts, marking and lot traceability, so the line does not stop at the loader. Bring the die drawing, the bond diagram and the expected dissipation, and each of these is answered against your design rather than in general terms.

Line-Side Handling Before Reflow

1. Check the pack before you sign for it. At goods-in, confirm the moisture-barrier bag is intact and the humidity indicator still reads dry. A bag punctured or crushed in transit restarts its floor-life clock the moment it is opened, so hold it aside and ask before releasing it to the line.
2. Log the date code and moisture level against the build order. Write the bag's rating and lot number on the traveller so the SMT supervisor knows the window without cutting a second bag open, and so a later test failure can be traced back to a storage decision rather than guessed at.
3. Stage in dry storage and kit by the shift. Keep sealed reels and trays in the dry cabinet and pull only what the current shift will consume. A full kit pulled on Monday and left on a trolley until Thursday has spent its floor life before the first board is printed.
4. Reseal whatever the shift does not use. Partly used reels go back into a bag with fresh desiccant and a strip of tape marked with the opening date; loose trays go back into their sleeve. Never decant the remainder of one bag into another — mixed date codes cannot be baked or traced as a single lot.
5. Bake on the rating, not on a hunch. Every bake is another thermal excursion on lands that still have to wet properly, so an unnecessary one trades a schedule problem for a solderability problem. When a bake is genuinely due, record temperature, duration and lot against the reel.
6. Keep the line station out of the heat. Trays parked beside a reflow oven's exhaust or above the printer's warm zone pull moisture from the air as they cool. Keep opened parts in a covered dry box at the station, not on the machine frame.
7. Feed one tray at a time and bring back the rest. Load a single tray or reel at the placement head and leave the others sealed; anything left in a feeder over a weekend shutdown returns to dry storage. Parts that sit out overnight take on ambient moisture and can blister or lift a land at the next reflow — a fault that shows up at test, long after the cause. On a QFN package like the QFN10X10-88L, where joints form under the body and cannot be inspected from the side, this discipline is what keeps first-pass yield stable.

Technical Support & Model Matching

Package selection is rarely a catalogue decision. Our engineers review your die, interconnect and thermal requirements together with your design team before anything is built, and recommend the package format and lead count that suit your board, your test plan and your production volume. Because design simulation, manufacturing and reliability testing sit within the same team, feasibility questions and qualification findings come back with a clear answer. Drawing on more than 30 years of shared packaging expertise, we also help trace yield and reliability problems back to their root cause.

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