Questions tagged [die]
A die is a small block of semiconducting material on which a given functional integrated circuit is fabricated. Typically, integrated circuits are produced in large batches on a single wafer of electronic-grade silicon (EGS) or other semiconductor (such as GaAs) through processes such as photolithography. The wafer is cut (“diced”) into many pieces, each containing one copy of the circuit. Each of these pieces is called a die.
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Can I cut an IC?
As far as I understand, the die of a DIP package is located at the center and the rest is just the lead frame. Given that I have unused pins, can I cut the top part of this microcontroller (ATmega16/...
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How is wafer dicing economical (for small ICs)?
Is my understanding that, for a given technology, the cost of making a silicon wafer is pretty much fixed, in the sense that it will not change no matter how much you fill the space (how many ICs you ...
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Why do fabs bother to print circuitry right up to the edges of a wafer when they know that the partial dies will be discarded later?
Around the edge of a wafer (see image below) you will observe that there are many partial dies. It seems wasteful to use the lithography machine to print these partial dies because they will be ...
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Using decapped ICs in production
We were looking for a very specific type of ADC in a small package for one of our projects, and found something suitable in a TSSOP. We wanted to save more space, so looked into getting bare dies; the ...
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Are some CPUs implemented in standard cells and are others customized?
Explaining the question more, I see some die pictures which are implementing a Cortex-M0, with Bluetooth LE and so on, depending on the chip functionality, and are appearing like this (nRF51822):
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ADC stops functioning when cold
EDIT: VERY INTERESTING TEST RESULTS
I just tried inducing the thermal failure using an inverted "can of air" (likely difluoroethane). It even when its super cold, (might even be below -40C), ...
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What shapes can IC dies be?
I know an IC die can be cut into a rectangular shape. Apparently triangles and rhombuses are also possible, but not used. What other tesselations can they be cut into?
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If the integrated circuit die is very small what is the role of the extra circuit packaging?
I noticed that the actual integrated circuits of processors, GPUs, ROMs, specific integrated circuits and other ICs are very small but they usually come in a package that is much bigger. What is the ...
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Can dual BJT packages be reliably used as current mirrors?
If I need current mirrors, can I just use dual NPN packages? I know that if multiple BJTs are manufactured on one die, they can pretty much be guaranteed to have the same spread.
Should I just stay ...
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What could've killed my ESP32S MCU?
I'm making my project and I managed to kill 2 ESP32 boards. First time I thought it was just accident (me shorting 2 wires) because my cables were messy, but it happened again and the circumstances ...
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Inside a 2N3904 transistor TO-92 package
I cracked open this 2N3904 transistor. I lack the means to test its function until tomorrow.
The die doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. I'm not quite sure where the silicon is.
In your ...
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Identification of bipolar transistors on die (pnp or npn?)
is it possible to tell from this photograph whether the transistors are npn or pnp? And if so, what is the line of reasoning? How to sort that out?
This photo I took is from a Sharp GP1FAV51RK0F ...
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The usage of chip topography and diagram(schematic)?
Are you an EE? Do you use TI Op-Amps? then you should know the answer of this question. probably that could be interesting for us.
If you take a look at the datasheet of TI(or a few other companies) ...
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How can some guys discern all parts of a MCU?
Today, when I was searching for find some dies, I saw these pictures:
Now I'm curious that know how can some guys discern all part of a MCU?
Is there any points that I use those to discern all part ...
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Difference between the words 'die' and 'chip' [closed]
In some articles speaking about the IGBT power modules, we can see that the word 'die' has been used for calling the semiconductor component of IGBT device. However, other articles calls it 'chip'. ...
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