Consider an IC that looks like this, or similar:
Note how the leads that are soldered to the board are on the underside of the IC.
I am barely an electronics novice. My work with electronics is basically making simple repairs to old gaming hardware, so my expertise is very limited.
I've tried to google this but I must be mis-naming these components when I try to search for how this is done but how are components like these soldered onto boards in production units? I could easily see either these pins being coated in a bit of solder, or maybe a thin layer of solder is already on the PCB when the chip is placed on it. Regardless, how is each pin heated up to the proper temp so that the solder will melt and the chip will stick to the board?
I've tried to figure this out on my own, but so far this just seems like "black magic".
As a minor follow-up, if you are developing electronic hardware that needs a component like this, how do you use a chip like this in prototyping and testing? Is there a manual way to solder chips like this? Regardless of how it's done, it seems to me it'd at least have to be a mechanical process because you'd need a certain degree of precision.