Mostek MK5009P

Map: http://siliconpr0n.org/map/mostek/mk5009p/top_metal_mit20x_semipol/


"Mostek industrial products: Counter Time-Base Circuit". Found this in a junk drawer already opened. It was stored in a vial but it seems to have taken some damage. I meant to rotate the map, might re-upload a fixed version later.

National Semiconductor DM7474J

"Dual D-Type Positive-Edge -Triggered Flip-Flops With Preset And Clear"

This was decapped by heating with a mini butane torch and dripping water on top so that the glass seal cracked. The lid was then removed and photographed in package. I had some pictures of the pinout and now I'm quite annoyed that the seem to have disappeared.

AWS scale controller

AWS scales are decent bang for buck. Unfortunately, they don't have reverse voltage protection and mine died after I plugged the wrong polarity adapter into it. Heres to its memory.

Wiki page / map link: http://siliconpr0n.org/archive/doku.php?id=mcmaster:aws:scale1

Still on board:


This chip uses aluminum bond wires which are less common but maybe more so for high volume electronics. I don't know exactly how many of these they sell but anything that is COB tends to fall under that category. I used H2SO4 to decap it and so while the PCB has been de-epoxied the copper traces are still intact.

Another interesting thing is that it has bus cheesing (the slits in the power rails around the chip) as well as fill patterns which generally suggests 350 nm or less and/or CMP. However, it appears to be non-planarized as you can see wires making imprints as they cross.

Xilinx XC9536XL

Wiki page / map link

Apologies but this ones a bit filthy. I've gotten better at cleaning things but took this a while ago.

The datasheet describes this as being two "54V18 Function blocks" meaning two areas with 54 inputs and 18 outputs. The die is pretty symmetric so its easy to guess where these top level blocks are.

National semiconductor DMPAL16R

Programmable array logic

NVIDIA RIVA128

I quickly realized that to make this practical before I would need a better microscope and more practice with decapsulation. I have that now so I want to give this a second try. Every Saturday I will attempt to link to a new reasonable resolution die image. Since I already have quite a few this should let me cheat if I get busy while still posting something new. I will try to post chips with a map so that you can view bandwidth friendly high resolution images.

With that said, lets give it a go. I somewhat arbitrarily decided the first chip would be a NVIDIA RIVA 128.




I wasn't that familiar with this chip but apparently its of historical importance as Wikipedia has a full article on it. It lists it as the NV3 chip. NVIDIA is a fabless semiconductor company meaning that they design their chips in house but don't operate any facilities to actually make them. I believe their main fab is TSMC or at least was for some time. However, this chip was probably made by ST as you can see the ST logo in the upper left hand corner:



I didn't realize that ST made chips for other people and maybe they don't do it anymore. I wonder if they helped design it at all or just stuck it on there as a maker's mark? What I find more interesting is that NV's logo isn't on there anywhere.

Purpose of this blog

This blog is inspired by IC Friday and is attempt to push out IC images on a regular basis. I will aim for late Saturdays since I have the most time on weekends to decapsulate and photograph chips. The name is a continuation of the Silicon Pr0n theme (ie centerfold). As I get better equipment expect the picture quality to improve. This will contain little to no analysis. If you are looking for analysis or similar, see my analysis blog.