To My Readers



If this is the first time you're visiting my blog, thank you. Whether you're interested or just curious to find out about PCB reverse engineering (PCB-RE), I hope you'll find something useful here.

This blog contains many snippets of the content in my books to provide a more detailed overall sampling for my would-be readers to be better informed before making the purchase. Of course, the book contains more photos and nice illustrations, as evidence from its cover page. Hopefully, this online trailer version will whet your appetite enough to want to get a copy for yourself.

Top Review

I started doing component level repair of electronics with (and without) schematics more than 40 years ago, which activity often involves reverse-engineering of printed circuit boards. Although over the years my technical interests have shifted into particle beam instrumentation, electron microscopy, and focused ion beam technology fields, till this day——and more often than not——PCB repairs have returned multiple multi-million-dollar accelerators, FIB, and SEM instruments back to operation, delivering great satisfaction and some profit.

Many of the methods described by Keng Tiong in great details are similar to the approaches I've developed, but some of the techniques are different, and as effective and useful as efficient and practical. Systematic approach and collection of useful information presented in his books are not only invaluable for a novice approaching PCB-level reverse engineering, but also very interesting reading and hands-on reference for professionals.

Focus on reverse engineering instead of original design provides unique perspective into workings of electronics, and in my opinion books by Keng Tiong (I've got all three of them) are must-read for anybody trying to develop good understanding of electronics——together with writings by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Phil Hobbs, Jim Williams, Bob Pease, Howard Johnson and Martin Graham, Sam Goldwasser, and other world's top electronics experts.

Valery Ray
Particle Beam Systems Technologist

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Component Classifications (Part 5)

Integrated Circuits

Integrated circuits (IC) are by far the most diversified and interesting of all electronic components, from small- to medium-scale (SSI/MSI) integration like the TTL/CMOS chips, to the large and very large-scale (LSI/VLSI) peripherals and microprocessors, and finally to the ultra large-scale (ULSI) containing over one million transistors, and the wafer-scale integration (WSI) that uses the entire silicon wafer to fabricate a super-chip.


And if you think you've seen enough possible varieties of component packages in the earlier sections, think again! As of April 2014, the existing list of integrated circuit packages can be grouped under eight major categories:

Through-hole SIP, DIP, CERDIP, QIP, SDIP, ZIP, MDIP, PDIP
Surface mount CGA, CCGA, CQGP, LLP, LGA, MCM, Micro SMDXT
Chip carrier BCC, CLCC, LCC, LCCC, DLCC, PLCC
Pin grid array OPGA, FCPGA, PAC, PPGA, CPGA
Flat pack CFP, DFN, QFN, PQFN, TQFN, QFP, BQFP, CQFP, LQFP, PQFP, TQFP
Small outline SOIC, SOP, CSOP, MSOP, PSOP, QSOP, SSOP, TSOP, TSSOP
Chip-scale CSP, TCSP, TDSP, COB, COF, COG, Micro SMD
Ball grid array CBGA, FBGA, LBGA, PBGA, SBGA, TBGA, μBGA

The above list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives you an idea of the extent the world of integrated circuits encompassed. 


Note:

My book's Appendix C contains sample isometric illustrations of popular IC packages which might be useful in identifying these myriads of ICs you may come across on a PCB. Of course, it does help to know that ICs are mostly designated as U or (you guess it) IC on the PCB's solder mask.
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