Collaborate Disseminate
A word of warning before watching this very cool video on soldering: it may make you greatly desire what appears to be a very, very expensive microscope. You’ve been warned. …read more Continue reading Soldering, Up Close and Personal
The world of console modding leads us to some extremely impressive projects, and a recent one we featured of note was a portable NES produced by [Redherring32]. It was special …read more Continue reading How Those NES DIP Chips Were Reduced To QFNs
The semiconductor shortage has curtailed the choices available to designers and caused some inventive solutions to be found, but the one used by [djzc] is probably the most inventive we’ve …read more Continue reading Nifty Chip Adapter Does The Impossible
You may have heard the phrase “flip-chip” before: it’s a broad term referring to several integrated circuit packaging methods, the common thread being that the semiconductor die is flipped upside down so the active surface is closest to the PCB. As opposed to the more traditional method in which the …read more
Continue reading Flip Chips and Sunken Ships: Packaging Trick for Faster, Smaller Semiconductors
Every once in a while, you’ll find some weirdness that will send your head spinning. Most of the time you’ll chalk it up to a bad solder joint, some bad code, or just your own failings. This time it’s different. This is a story of weirdness that’s due entirely to a pin that shouldn’t be there. This is a package for an integrated circuit that has a pin zero.
The story begins with [Erich] building a few development boards for the Freescale Kinetis K20 FPGA. This is a USB-enabled microcontroller, and by all accounts, a worthwhile effort. So far, so …read more
Continue reading Fail Of The Week: When the Epoxy-Coated Chip Is Conductive