Abstract: Vibrational energy is used to fluidize a bed of particulate material over the top surface of a tooling plate with particle alignment hole passing from its top to bottom side. The particle alignment holes are slightly smaller than the particles in the particulate bed. The vibrational energy's frequency, amplitude, orientation, and phase relationships are applied in such a manner as to generate controlled motion within the fluidized particle bed. This motion is used to move the individual particles within the fluidized particle bed to positions from which they can be pulled, by gravity, into the tooling plate's particle alignment holes. Once in the alignment holes, the individual particles is acted upon by gravity and pulled down onto a contact surface that is coated with a tacky substance. The tacky substance causes the particle to adhere to the contact surface. While this invention can be applied to the placement of solder balls in ball grid array, its application and scope are not limited to ball grid array.