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Comment by DoingIsLearning | Hacker News Reader

On this topic, is there anything like a 'chip forensics consulting service' out there?

Say if I find a batch from a scalper but I am not sure if it is genuine.

Yep, you'll typically have to sacrifice a couple components to destructive test though depending on what you're trying to accomplish. GD4 Test Services is one such company I've worked with before.

Yes, this is a very common activity in electronics manufacturing. Big names, amongst many others are White Horse, Smith & Associates, Rand Technologies, etc.

Depending on the sensitivity and risk to a particular product, it's not uncommon to have a suite of testing done on a sample from every received shipment of a particular good, or set of goods. Testing typically goes beyond counterfeit detection to being within manufacturability and usability specs (e.g. solderability, lot code validation, date code validation, etc.)

Usually priced out of the hobbyist range, think 2-3k to do basic suite verification on a sample of 5 components. That would not include de-capping and die examination.

There are failure analysis labs that will do this, but $$$. There are also Chinese R&D/FA/cloning businesses that advertise publicly but I've prices start at thousands of dollars.

Even though hobbyists have setups for decapping or de-packaging, it's going to cost a lot to actually do this as a business, most of the techniques are dangerous and use toxic materials.

Yeah I do this as part of my consulting work. Typical applications are failure analysis, security research, or re-manufacturing obsolete electronics. Note however these tend to be larger projects and more than a quick die photo. Although I do (did?) smaller die photo commissions if someone is ok with the data being public.

There are some but vary in how publicly accessible they are.

I haven’t used DangerousPrototypes for probably 5+ years, but they’ve got a decapping service that you send parts and they send back a die shot.

https://dirtypcbs.com/store/decap

If there isn't, there really should be. I bet that would be an excellent business to be in.

Once I considered offering such a service for a select few parts.

But: shipping, and low $ per part doesn't make it worth the effort. If you're buying a $3 cpu it just isn't worth it to re-route through a testing service for several additional $ per pc. + shipping.

Now if talking about say, $100+ / piece parts, sure. But then the testing services would have to be extensive, professional, and equipped accordingly. Above my pay grade, so to speak.

But yes it would be nice if such service(s) existed.

Good points. I hadn't really thought through the economics of it. I wonder... if the testing could be automated at high speed, would that make the economics work? That would enable being able to service entities that buy larger quantities of parts, reducing the impact of shipping costs. Those don't have to even be companies -- I already buy most of the parts for my hobby projects in larger quantities, in order to get bulk discounts, free shipping, and to have sufficient stock on hand that I don't need to order things every time I start a new project.

Now my imagination is running wild...

I agree with this. I often get asked to decap + image chips commercially and its not usually worth it unless its a value add / loss leader as part of a larger project.

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