June 29, 2017
ST 2STD1665 - power NPN BJT : weekend die-shot
ST 2STD1665 have quite outstanding hFE of 320 (for a non-darlington 65V power BJT). That makes it very useful for switching applications where you wish to drive it with low voltage (e.g. pin of microcontroller with 1.8V VCC) where N-MOSFET would require external circuitry.You can see extensive net to stitch thin, high-resistance base with metal. Emitter resistance could have been slightly lower with different pad placement (closer to center and on the diagonal) but apparently it's not a major performance-limiting factor.
And... it's just beautiful!
Die size 1740x1727 µm.
April 30, 2017
1107PV2 - 20MHz 8bit Soviet flash ADC : weekend die-shot
1107PV2 is another Soviet flash ADC - 8-bit with 20MHz conversion rate.
Closer look at comparators:
April 24, 2017
1107PV3A - 100MHz 6bit Soviet ADC : weekend die-shot
1107PV3A is a state of the art Soviet 6-bit (+overflow output) flash ADC with impressive 100MHz conversion rate. Rated for 500g continuous linear acceleration.Die size 3959x2755 µm.
April 17, 2017
LR433A - Chinese 433MHz SAW resonator : weekend die-shot
This Chinese LR433A is a SAW resonator at 433MHz. Heart of numerous simplest RF transmission systems. Die is transparent - it's quartz.It was packaged this dirty (it looks more like photoresist processing defect). Die size 3681x769 µm.
Comb pitch 3.2µm (line+space). Another specimen had cute defect: only miracle left 2 terminals not shorted:
March 14, 2017
February 28, 2017
A look inside Russian 28nm MIPS CPU - Baikal-T1
Many of you might have heard about Baikal-T1 - Russian implementation of dual core Imagination Technologies MIPS P5600 32 r5 with on-board 10Gb Ethernet. Baikal was the first to implement P5600 core in silicon.CPUs itself (had to go through 4 pieces to get a good die):
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February 19, 2017
Fake Hitachi HA17555 : weekend die-shot
This fake 555 is marked as Hitachi HA17555.Die size 747x762 µm.
For some reason different die sample had significantly different color:
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