LQFP vs BGA hand soldering?

[FJB2069]

Anyone have any experience with BGA hand soldering?   I have always tried to stay away from BGA parts as far as prototyping and being able to rework a pcb.  But now with choices between small pitch LQFP parts and BGA I am wondering if a 176 - 206 ball bga may be easier to work with than the same pin count LQFP?

Any feedback is appreciated.

[Rodo]

I think LQFP is better than BGAs.  I've hand soldered both but there are advantages to LQFP. A BGA board may require more layers on the PCB to route all "balls" out to other components and you won't be able to test the pins (balls) unless you fan them out.  Production cost may increase for fine pitch BGAs where the vias to route out traces are very small (0.50mm pitch on BGA).

[FJB2069]

Thanks for the advice!  I didn't think about the via and and layer requirements.

[Tesla DeLorean]

Via in-pad, shrinkage of solder mask and proper fill / planarization can also be issues depending on your design rules, and PCBA limits 

But as @Rodo suggests, the size trade-off tends to increase board costs, and rigors of board manufacture and assembly. High ball counts make pin escape more challenging, and you need to think about how the AF muxing can help or hinder pin choices.

FMC and LTDC tending to have large counts and limited choices/options

Even for small pin-count, my PCBA guys are much more comfortable with the LQFP or LQFN type devices over BGA or WS