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Ken Shirriff

HP made a lot of silicon-on-sapphire chips: processors, calculators, and this PHI interface chip. First was the MC² 16-bit processor. This cover photo from HP Journal shows the transparency of that chip. 3/9
20 Dec 2023 at 17:31 | Open on oldbytes.space
5 comments
Ken Shirriff

The package is unusual: the die is mounted on a flat ceramic substrate with a ceramic cap glued on. We heated the package to soften the glue. twitter.com/TubeTimeUS poked the cap with an X-Acto knife, but instead of sliding off, the cap violently flew off with a loud "pow"! 4/9
20 Dec 2023 at 17:31 | Open on oldbytes.space
Alexey Merz

@kenshirriff So the interface was under mechanical strain?

20 Dec 2023 at 17:35 | Open on sciencemastodon.com
🇺🇦 haxadecimal

@kenshirriff Motorola experimented with that package design in the late 1980s, e.g. with their DSP56001, and called it the "SLAM" package. Maybe their's more than one reason for that name.
:-)

photos of Motorola chip and a socket:
flickr.com/gp/_brouhaha_/r2459

20 Dec 2023 at 18:22 | Open on mastodon.social
Sebastiaan Dammann

@kenshirriff Is the defect in the chip visible through the die shot?

20 Dec 2023 at 20:02 | Open on mastodon.nl
Infinity

@kenshirriff You can also find Tube Time on Mastodon at @tubetime 😃.

20 Dec 2023 at 20:36 | Open on infosec.exchange
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