November 17, 2014
Torex XC6206 - CMOS LDO : weekend die-shot
Torex XC6206 is a popular and really tiny CMOS LDO, especially if you compare it to older bipolar ones, which were magnitude larger. 250mA LDO in SOT-23 might be hard to believe at first.Datasheet mentions "laser trimming" but we see voltage set via mask and 2 fuses for fine tuning. It is possible though that they have common values set in mask (like this 3.3V one) , and rare voltages laser trimmed.
Die size 500x356 µm, 500nm technology.
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November 10, 2014
DIP 10Mhz Quartz oscillator based on Seiko NPC HA5022A3 : weekend die-shot
Seiko NPC HA5022A3 contains internal load capacitors, oscillator with amplitude limiting (for reduced power consumption) and optional frequency divider.Die size 976x770 µm.
Quartz crystal is mounted on springs - in order to reduce impact of vibration on oscillation stability and to make it's damage less likely:
There is an oscillator IC soldered on the ceramic PCB, as well as 0.01uF power supply decoupling cap. It seems we need to go deeper:
November 4, 2014
November 1, 2014
BFR93 - BJT RF transistor : weekend die-shot
BFR93 is a popular, BJT npn RF transistor.Die size 265x264 µm. Transistor itself occupy only small part of the die - it is impractical to cut smaller die, it is already almost a silicon cube:
October 27, 2014
10Mhz Quartz SMD oscillator based on Seiko NPC SM5009 : weekend die-shot
Seiko NPC SM5009 contains internal load capacitors, oscillator with amplitude limiting (for reduced power consumption) and optional frequency divider.Die size 1194x897 µm, 800nm technology.
October 20, 2014
OnSemi MMBT2222A - npn BJT transistor : weekend die-shot
Die size 343x343 µm. Comparing to NXP BC847B die area is 1.5x larger (0.118 vs 0.076mm²), but maximum continuous collector current is 6 times higher (600mA vs 100mA, SOT-23 in both cases). This huge increase in current per transistor area is achieved by shunting thin (=high-resistance) base layer with metal. High resistance of base layer is the limiting factor for maximum collector current in BC847B.
October 20, 2014
NXP 2N7002 N-channel MOSFET : weekend die-shot
Die size 377x377 µm.
Hexagonal cells of TrenchMOS transistor has 4µm size.
