Q: integrated circuit inductors

Andy Resnick

My decapsulation technique has improved enough to uncover something new (possibly baluns)- they came off a wireless PCB and are extremely delicate- I was shredding the gold foil previously. This i what they (sort of) look like- the gold square is about 1mm on a side, and the ferrous metal square seems to match up with the coils:



The coils are free-standing:



Here's another one:




I also found a few of these (also about 1mm on the long side), but I have no idea what they are- any guesses?



I'm not sure how much better I can clean these- the (presumably) ferrite is dissolved by the acids, and as the gold parts dry, surface tension is enough to deform the structure.

Andy Resnick

Mystery solved- found the right URL:

http://rfic.eecs.berkeley.edu/~nikne...te/create.html

dlgoff

You need a new pair of tweezers.



http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/resea...rotweezer.html

Andy Resnick

Heh- no doubt! I work with lightly filed-down #5 Dumonts.