Black IC's - a look inside

In case someone ever wondered how it looks like.

This is the silicon wafer from a square black IC with gold wires still attached.
(click the image for high resolution)




A wafer from a black chips found on memory sticks.
(click the image for high resolution)

Interesting, thanks for posting those. I have one question, the first picture, is that after incineration or acid bath? Or both?

That's pretty awesome Sam thanks! Almost makes me want to start trying to depopulate northbridges and all the rest of this ICs but it's just not worth it with my tiny volume

Rodthrower18

This is not from n/s bridge, just a common Black IC.
I'll upload one of the n/s bridge later if theres anything to see.

resabed01

The picture was taken after a chemical treatment.

samuel-a said:

Rodthrower18

This is not from n/s bridge, just a common Black IC.
I'll upload one of the n/s bridge later if theres anything to see.

resabed01

The picture was taken after a chemical treatment.

Click to expand...

Hi sam
Great picture. Can you post a picture of the top before treatment so we know what to look for, thanks

joem

Item "D" in this link is similar to the chip on the first picture:
http://tinyurl.com/brga754


Here is another one from a large n/s bridge (gold corner - Item "A"):
The square (wafer + wires) is a bit over 1/2 inch wide... Gold wires almost twice as long then the regular square IC.



Click for High resolution
http://www.goldnscrap.com/images/IMGP2508-1.JPG

Sorry for the quality, that's the best i could get with my 60$ pocket camera.

Thanks again, and don't be sorry, your information has always been top notch.

Samuel,

Are the wires in these chips solid gold or plated? Seems like they would have to be solid. Im basing this on their size and the 10 gram yeild patnor had in his batch.

Great pics Sam! Been wondering what they looked like undressed. What acid treatment did you use? Nitric?

goldenchild

I believe they are soild gold at high purity, GSP once mentioned they are one of the very few items in electronics which are made of high purity gold.



maynman1751

No, i did not use nitric acid.
With your permission, i would prefer not to disclose how i did it, for the moment.

Few days ego i had a... "2 + 2" moment while in my lab... and i found a relatively "easy" way to strip the chips clean.

I'm now working to develop it into a single flowing process, with the hope of keeping things both cost effective and SAFE.
This method may be somewhat dangerous and controversial, i'm sure not everybody will approve it, so, for the moment, i prefer not to induce anyone to try and possibly hurt himself for an untested and unproven process.

Until than, i'll keep it to myself, with the hope you will understand.

samuel-a said:

goldenchild

I believe they are soild gold at high purity, GSP once mentioned they are one of the very few items in electronics which are made of high purity gold.



maynman1751

No, i did not use nitric acid.
With your permission, i would prefer not to disclose how i did it, for the moment.

Few days ego i had a... "2 + 2" moment while in my lab... and i found a relatively "easy" way to strip the chips clean.

I'm now working to develop it into a single flowing process, with the hope of keeping things both cost effective and SAFE.
This method may be somewhat dangerous and controversial, i'm sure not everybody will approve it, so, for the moment, i prefer not to induce anyone to try and possibly hurt himself for an untested and unproven process.

Until than, i'll keep it to myself, with the hope you will understand.

Click to expand...

Sam
No need to apologise for protecting what basically amounts to proprietary information at this point. "Sharing" doesn't mean giving away your livelihood.
We understand.

No problem Sam! I understand completely. Maybe someday you can share your 'secret'. Until then Thank You for all your contributions to the "cause". John.

dtectr, maynman1751

Thank you for that.

For now, i can report that things look positive for this process, and the next step is to scale up to 1lb batchs and see from there.

Here is a result from very small batch of N/S bridge chips:

Interesting Sammy, I can't wait to see the final result! 8)

Phil

If you could ramp this process up to have the capability of processing 1 pound batches with an end result like in your latest picture... I would gladly pay for that information.

Sam, I do believe that you have 'stumbled' onto something that has a lot of potential. I would love to be able to eliminate all the crap from these devices without having to incinerate, mash, filter, so on. Great Job!!!!!! Keep us posted. I know a lot of people are interested in your progress.

goldenchild said:

If you could ramp this process up to have the capability of processing 1 pound batches with an end result like in your latest picture... I would gladly pay for that information.

Click to expand...

What goldenchild said!!! :mrgreen:

I've been asked privately what was the size of the "small batch" in my latest picture.
Here's some more info and yield data.

First, i need to explain what exactly i've been processing. In this case, only the top, plastic part of the N/S bridges were processed.
The fibrous parts was (were?) put aside for later processing as they also contain gold.

So, i've been processing 49.2g of those plastic tops of different sizes. about 32 pieces in total. The part were seperated by hand.

Plastic was eliminated, gold wires washed & dissolved in AR, precipitated with SMB, washed with acid/water and dried.
The resulting clean gold powder weigh 0.62g (+- 0.01).

I reckon i did had some minute losses along the way, both when gold was in wire form and as powder while washed.
I can only give an educated guess as to how much gold really did got lost, though, in my opinion the loss is no more then 0.07g

Thank you Samuel! 8)

i have recently processed some north/south bridges, a la Pat, and due to some dumb-a** mistakes on my part, there were some minor losses from my batch, as well.
I processed the fiber bottoms first and was reminded how a little gold can look like a lot. The yields were so low from this small control sample, that it was nearly unmeasurable. The best you could say was that it was visible.
However, the lids were quite impressive. Most of my numbers are on my camera, so photos and numbers will appear simultaneously.