How to «open» microchip and what's inside?

July 27, 2016 10:29 AM

We love microchips. That's why we boil them in acid and cut them up with a dremel.
posted by carter (27 comments total)

My dad's a EE so I grew up with a lot of this stuff around me. I still find it incomprehensible how all those little connections turn into computations and how that all turns, eventually, into airplanes and kitten videos.

Well, there's some point in that process at which I start understanding. But chips are still a big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cool post, thanks!
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:49 AM on July 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Analog chips are so crazy. All those nutty shapes. I can't even imagine trying to simulate those things.
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM on July 27, 2016

I can't possibly begin to understand what I'm looking at, so all I can say is that it's a cool process that yields neat photos.

(Also, would they be modifying EEPROM with a UV laser by etching new curcuits, or what?)
posted by teponaztli at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2016

Technically you erase EPROMS with UV light, by design. EEPROMS are erased electrically. From wikipedia: Photons of the UV light cause ionization within the silicon oxide, which allow the stored charge on the floating gate to dissipate. Since the whole memory array is exposed, all the memory is erased at the same time.

Using a UV laser would let you erase specific parts of an EPROM or I guess an EEPROM once you decaped it. I'm not really sure if EEPROMs have the same top-mounted floating gates.
posted by GuyZero at 11:15 AM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised the 555 is so complicated.
posted by MtDewd at 11:19 AM on July 27, 2016

Oh I love this! Seeing the TL072 made me beam with joy because it reminded me of when I started making circuits. Also, it's pretty.
posted by destructive cactus at 11:20 AM on July 27, 2016

Also, all these bipolar junction transistors look like dang mobile app icons.
posted by destructive cactus at 11:22 AM on July 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ooh, I like the hardened 1886VE10. But I don't think any of the images are as pretty as the RCA 1802.
posted by scruss at 11:24 AM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is fascinating, thanks for the links. I kind of wish they'd put more of a description about what the chips do but the pictures alone are neat. It' neat to see how many of the designs have copyright information, patent numbers, etc all laid out in the design itself. Not sure what actual good it does given the lengths it takes to read the writing (300-degree boiling acid -- yikes!).

The company I work for designs microchips, and we have framed pictures similar to this on all of our walls for all of the chips that we've made. Of course we have the advantage of not needing acid baths to make the photos.

It seems like this blog is Russian-based, both due to the number of Russian/Soviet chips and the (occasional) grammar errors. Just speculation of course. Any more idea / info about who is behind this blog? They don't seem to have a 'about us' page or anything...
posted by Arandia at 11:38 AM on July 27, 2016

There are a lot of die shots on visual6502.org, but the most amazing pages on that site are the visual simulators, such as the 6502 one.

These are the electric routes and transistors coming together, step by step, to go from logic gates to executing instructions... (in your browser). Amazing.
posted by vert canard at 11:41 AM on July 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yes, gauging by the descriptions in which they specify it, and the twitter account, they are indeed based in Moscow.
posted by destructive cactus at 11:42 AM on July 27, 2016

Oh, they also have an in-depth, err 'melt down' (can't think of a better phrase right now) of the infamous FTDI chip and a clone.

You may have heard of this here on MeFi, or elsewhere. An interesting way to 'combat' cloning, but not a very good one, as it only affected end users, sometimes WAY down the chain.
posted by destructive cactus at 11:55 AM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Zeptobars is awesome! These scans inspired me to pick up an old metallurgical microscope a few years back, and it's been super fun to play around with this stuff firsthand. The hardest part is decapsulating the chips, but you can cheat by using chips that aren't fully encapsulated to begin with, like scanner elements, LEDs, old EPROMs, or power components in cans. Modern chips are next to impossible to comprehend but are still fun to look at because they have so many metal layers.
posted by phooky at 12:01 PM on July 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Here's a Defcon talk that goes into depths of how to do this yourself without dying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4aF-qiziM
posted by I-baLL at 12:33 PM on July 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks for all the extra links, y'all!
posted by carter at 12:45 PM on July 27, 2016

Well, they're kind of all analog, right?

You can do VHDL or whatever or simulate a 6502 in Spice if you're willing to put in the time. I'm not sure if you can even simulate the low-noise GPS analog RF amplifier - it's all based on semiconductor topology. Modern digital designs are all automatically laid out but front-end RF amps are just magic as far as I'm concerned.

I welcome insight from whatever rf semi engineers exist around here.
posted by GuyZero at 12:55 PM on July 27, 2016

 → the infamous FTDI chip and a clone

That only affected end users who couldn't believe the deal they were getting on the cheap adapters from ebay and dx. Didn't seem to do FTDI the company any long-term damage.
posted by scruss at 3:26 PM on July 27, 2016

I thought one variant of the official Arduino had a knockoff ftdi chip?
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:13 PM on July 27, 2016

That only affected end users who couldn't believe the deal they were getting on the cheap adapters from ebay and dx.

Knockoff chips are usually passed off as genuine. They aren't purchased by shady folks trying to save a buck; they're often purchased by smaller manufacturers from no-name suppliers out of desperation. Atmel never seemed to manage to produce enough atmega328s to meet demand, and they were just flat-out unavailable at least once a year. We had to delay shipments a few times because of this. Sparkfun famously got shafted on these.
posted by phooky at 5:00 PM on July 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, if you can sell a FTDI Basic Program Downloader for under 2× the price of the bare chip in quantity 2000, there's something fishy going on, and you should suspect it.
posted by scruss at 6:20 PM on July 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just love this unapologetically - the complexity is a continual struggle between rectilinear order and chaos in its profusion.

Also, I sort of assumed chips were in some sort of ceramic enclosure, it wouldn't occur to me they're plastic. It must be a very thermally stable and heat-tolerant plastic!
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:27 PM on July 27, 2016

Mil-spec and high reliability stuff can still be in ceramic, but most chips are encapsulated in epoxy molding compound. If it was plastic it'd be a lot easier to decap the darn things, though. I looked into buying fuming nitric acid once and then decided that it'd be irresponsible to do this sort of thing without a legit fume hood.
posted by Standard Orange at 9:27 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

... sooooo you accidentally bought with your own money a large fume hood and since, hey! You already had one kicking about the very-above-board lab, well, why not. Try not to cackle in front of the feds, no matter how predictably dramatic the reaction was.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:38 PM on July 27, 2016

"My God, its full of gnomes!"
posted by boilermonster at 10:49 PM on July 27, 2016

there's something fishy going on

Fair enough! My point was just that not everyone using a sketchy chip was trying to save a buck. Supply chains are hard.
posted by phooky at 4:50 AM on July 28, 2016

The epoxy is often glass-filled (I think for the thermal expansion properties), which makes it even more of a pain in the butt to decap. I tried ablating the epoxy with a laser and it seemed to work, but when I looked at the die I realized that there was a crust of fused glass over everything.
posted by phooky at 4:55 AM on July 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised that they didn't find any chip art.
posted by monotreme at 8:09 AM on July 28, 2016