How to open microchip and see what’s inside

Microchips – are indeed can be considered a black box – as long as it’s working you normally don’t look inside.But what if you want to?Today we’ll show how to “open” chips and what’s inside.All operations with concentrated (and especially hot) acids are extremely dangerous. White substance at the bottom is baking soda – it’s here to neutralize accidental spills and part of fumes.After 30-40 minutes, acid “burns” plastic to carbon:After it cools down, we can sort what is ready for next step and what needs another acid bath (thick, bulky packages usually need 2-3 rounds):If pieces of carbon stuck to the microchip itself and cannot be removed mechanically, one can remove them in hot concentrated nitric acid (temperature is much lower, ~110-120 °C):Images are clickable (beware of 5-25Mb JPEG’s). GAL is an 32×64 array of AND elements.GAL(Generic array logic) microchips are FPGA and CPLD grandfathers.Die size – 2434×2079µm, 1µm technology.

Source: zeptobars.com