Where they remove the cover and make it so you can see the different regions inside? Maybe they mount them in epoxy too?
Can this be done by myself? Or does anyone know any stores that sell these? Thanks for your help.
“decapping” is a term I’ve heard for opening an IC package.
as for doing it yourself, it’s fraught with peril since silicon is brittle and crumbles easily.
I used to have a keychain from Intel which had a Pentium Pro chip epoxied and sealed on it; as I understand it they took CPU chips which failed validation and made trinkets out of them.
In the industry it’s colloquially called decapping.
They typically use a nitric acid, or something similar. It’s quite a science to perform this. You need to develop a recipe based on the epoxy formulation, thickness, etc.
This isn’t a hobbyist activity. You need fume hoods, and gloves, etc.
We used to use hot n-methylpyrrolidone.
Why do you want to do this? Just for fun?
Ah great, thanks. I couldn’t find anything searching for “opening”, “inside” or “etching”. I suspected it needed hazardous chemicals.
Actually, my wedding is coming up and I’m looking for cufflinks that represent “me”. My top choices are either this, or (working) lasers. Next choice is just a circuit board, they’re quite easy to find.
Ah I figured I can skip the decapping and just get a rejected, unmounted IC. eBay has some but they only sell the whole wafer and they’re expensive. I wonder if I can get any rejects anywhere…
Look for “die” or “dice.” There should be lots out there. They are quite fragile - you’ll need to embed them in resin.
I went with the easiest way and found Intel’s products on eBay. Couldn’t find any cufflinks, so I got clip-on earrings. I found you can use them as cufflinks too! Some pictures:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_lf9q4f1r2Y/TnHx8Mx1-XI/AAAAAAAAz78/cSZjKz-T1Uw/s800/IMG_1841.JPG
And an extreme close-up:
Cool.
neat. I wish I still had my PPro keychain.