Dies imaging requests

I am open to requests.

You can send me dies to image, or random ICs (or boards) so I can decap and image the interesting ones.

I do most of the panoramas imaging with a 20x objective to achieve up to 200x zooms.

This is what it looks like on a relatively modern IC, and on older ones.

Note: requests will be made in priority to my patreons.
I will only make magnification higher than 200x to my supporters.

TLDR

  • Service is free but the result is licensed under CC BY 4.0
  • Contact me on patreon, my twitter or by mail
  • You must ship your package to France
  • Already decapped chips, or possible failure when I extract the die
  • Capture at 100x magnification for big dies or 200x for medium dies
  • Capture possible at 500x or even 1000x for small ROI (only for supporters)
8086 CPU Z80 CPU 6522 VIA FC1001 W538T808
200x 200x 200x 500x ROIs 1000x ROIs

Limitations

I don’t have a lab or chemicals, so I can’t do decapping and delayering reliably.

I can open common ICs using the heatgun method or my custom furnace.

I can do IC delayering with imaging of successive steps, but the process is fastidious so I can’t do this for free.

If your IC is rare or costly, it is best to send me the dies directly.

Contact

Make sure you can send your ICs to France.

You can contact me by MP on my twitter, or by mail to tics.requests @@ gmail dot com.

I always answer, but can take a week or more if I haven’t seen the message.

Imaging time

With my current setup I do most of the imaging at 200x because it’s the best time quality trade-off.

All magnifications include:

  • Focus stacking
  • Autofocus
  • Chromatic aberration correction

A tile takes between 5 and 8 seconds, depending on the number of images required.

Focus stacking produces crisp images like this, even when several layers are not at the same depth.

Imaging at 100x

I can do imaging at 100x if the IC is too big and details are not important:

  • 300µm tile step

It’s fast and the quality is sufficient to analyze the chip structure.

For example, 23mm2 will be achieved in 40min.

Imaging at 200x

Imaging at 200x is the best compromise to get high quality for decent times:

  • 150µm tile step
  • 8 sec / tile

For a die of 3.0mm x 3.0mm, we need 21x21 = 441 tiles.
441⋅8 sec = 3528 sec = 1h

Imaging at 500x

Imaging at 500x produces high quality images but is slower:

  • 75µm tile step
  • 6 - 8 sec / tile

Overall less than 3h for 10mm2.

Imaging at 1000x

Maximum optical magnification is achieved here:

  • 37µm tile step
  • 8 - 12 sec / tile

Useful for reverse engineering of more modern processes.

Aproximatively 10h for 4mm2.