October 31, 2017

UMC UA6538 - Dendy (NES compatible) PPU : weekend die-shot

UMC UA6538 was a "GPU" (called PPU - "picture processing unit" at the time) of a Dendy, NES-compatible console which was very popular in Russia until late 90's. Decap was done for reverse engineering of differences vs original NES at nesdev.com.

Die size 4578x4069 µm.



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October 3, 2017

Philips NE5532A : weekend die-shot

Another genuine NE5532A from Philips. You can see it is much more similar to genuine Ti NE5532 than to fake.


October 3, 2017

Ti NE5532 - real vs fake : weekend die-shot

We have spotted yet another real/fake pair of very common microchip. This time it is Ti NE5532. NE5532 is a very fine opamp which will do just fine in 99% of audio applications. I afraid it got at bit of bad fame due to fakes which have quantitatively slower slew rate and sound objectively worse.

Genuine Ti NE5532 has die size of 2103x2154µm.


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September 17, 2017

ST TSC1031IDT 70V high-side current sense amplifier : weekend die-shot

STMicroelectronics TSC1031 allows to amplify differential signal with high common-mode voltage (up to 70V) while having low VCC (2.7 to 5.5V) which is very useful for high-side current sensing.

Die size 422x437 µm.

July 24, 2017

Ti TLC5540I 8bit 40MSPS semiflash ADC : weekend die-shot

Ti TLC5540I is a CMOS semi-flash 8bit 40MSPS ADC. Die is much smaller than simple 8bit flash ADC.

Die size 1699x1801 µm, 1µm minimum half-pitch.



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July 23, 2017
July 8, 2017

Fairchild BCV27 - npn darlington BJT : weekend die-shot

Fairchild BCV27 - is a tiny SOT-23 Darlington npn BJT with hFE of 20'000.
Die size 612x611 µm.