For my engineering project, we wanted to use the gain control and amplifier available on these two chips, but are finding difficulty with prototyping them as they are so tiny. One of the chips is a 14 pin (MAX9814) and the other is a 10 pin (MAX9820), the 14 pin having a .4mm pitch and the 10 pin having a .5mm pitch. We initially were going to have custom PCB printed using an eagle footprint since we couldn't find any adapters, but still have no method of soldering these chips in place after we obtain that. Any ideas?
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You can solder those chips on with hot air, liquid flux and a bit of solder paste. They have pads that run up the sides so it's possible to inspect the connections (but not the thermal pad). When the thermal pad is properly soldered, the chip should settle down onto the board and center itself. Get some good quality fine flux-infused solder wick to clear any shorts.
You should use a proper hot air station, but it's also possible to use a temperature controlled (not the $10 kind, the $200 kind) of heat gun (called a 'heat tool' in Europe, apparently). If use the cheap uncontrolled kind you'll probably fry the board.
You could also call in a favor from whatever assembly house you are planning to use for production and have them populate the chips. Should not cost much if you are a regular customer.
Alternately, Maxim offers (somewhat expensive) evaluation boards for both of the chips, and Adafruit offers an (inexpensive) board for the mic amplifier, all of which come with the chips already soldered.
answered Apr 12, 2016 at 21:02
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\$\begingroup\$ Would I be able to use the chips to their full functionality if I acquired the evaluation boards for both? The idea is I want them to work in together to receive an audio signal and reduce gain (volume) before playing it back through a speaker. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 21:22
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\$\begingroup\$ Probably- you should review the documentation for the boards and compare it with your proposed application. For simple chips like these it's usually just fine, but sometimes more complex chips (high end micros) don't have all the connections brought out- for example BGA pins leading to the Ethernet MAC left inaccessible). \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 23:22
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\$\begingroup\$ when using the heat gun, its quite easy to have components blown away, so make sure you have a firm grip with the tweezers, and some spares... also, if you can get away with it, consider leaded solder which melts at lower temperature and will make your life slightly easier \$\endgroup\$– Mark ChCommented Apr 13, 2016 at 5:53