Hi Mike, great video, that metal plating is some kind of electroless coating that they offer now, I've quoted a while back and it wasn't expensive at all. They do all kinds of electroless coatings here in the UK on metal and plastics, not all plastics though. Anyway, keep them up, great stuf!
the metal on the lens housing looks like LPKF MID process ( injection molded plastic that can get metal deposits on it ) : www.lpkf.com/products/mid/lpkf-lds-process.htm
Mike - is the Mantis the microscope you use to show the die structures? Also, I've had success removing glued-on die covers by attaching the die to a piece of aluminum with epoxy and then gently rubbing it against super fine sandpaper until I can see that I've worn a hole through it. Then I can take very fine tweezers or a very fine knife blade and crack off pieces of the cover via the opening I've made.
Brafilus The original 16:9 content is encoded as 4:3 for sure, but its the youtube player doing the last conversion; renders properly on my 5:4 monitor, but probably looks poo on a 16:9 screen.
mikeselectricstuff For some reason, right after you cracked the case off of the thing at the beginning, I suddenly had the urge to see how far I could scroll down before finding someone complaining in some way about the video. I didn't even notice the letterboxing to be honest, because i was actually interested in the content and not the vagaries of the medium in which it is conveyed.I think some folks are just OCD about this kind of thing, and that's fine, we all have our quirks. Mine seems to be the desire to complain about said people in an annoyingly verbose way. Unfortunately you can't do much about either, so sorry if it compounds the negativity. :) Just wanted to say 'video is fine' and thank you for doing it. I'm so happy to see thermal imagery coming down out of the stratosphere, i think it really could open up a lot of new ways learn about the world around us. Hopefully high speed cameras follow suit. :)
Time to put it back in it's box and send it back to amazon. The detail from the xray is amazing, what you need next is a friend who can knock you up an electron microscope ;P
This was an extreme teardown indeed! So if these pixels are that easy to blow away - how would this sensor handle vibration or let's say falling from a meter or two?
the senor pixels are in a vacuum, so compressed air is not rely a design aspect to say the least. A drop from two meters is a challenge for all bits of electronics. Try it out, but do not complain when you stuff breaks. The only thing to make equipment survive that is by shock absorption, speak packaging. When dropping it from two meters, I think you would kill the conventional solder joints, so killing the pixels is kind of a non issue. A custom tray to transport this sensor is a requirement - but as the pick and place machine needs a defined packaging, this is a given any way. Also: The sensor elements are pretty light weight - gravity can not apply that much force. Compressed air on the other side: The pixel is relatively thin for it surface, acting as a kind of sail. To Mooses argument: Valid - but dust is the more prevalent problem. It is a chip or to be more specific micro-mechanic. So the dies need to be handled carefully anyway.
Photolithography.. They design the circuits in a large scale, then scale it down by something like a photocopier with a minimize feature... read about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photolithography
Bloody Hell !!!!!! Is this even human technology? Maybe Mike is the alien? I want to scrape shit and xray them now. Oh, I blame you for my financial demise.
Eyeballing it, that metallic layer seems to be too thick for commercial vapor deposition. I'd put my money on the component being injection molded in the factory, cooled, then a process similar to vaccum forming but instead of using standard polymer, you use pre-heated composite metal (selected for proper thermal [you want it to reach an elastic state as low as possible], conductive, and budget properties].. www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=914 edit: that being said I haven't ever done a production run of anything that even needed VD, but even with Flir's budget, it doesn't seem economically viable, especially as they'd have to go to a specialty house just for that component.
+wither8 /FLIR_Lepton_Data_Brief.pdf Sparkfun put out a datasheet they werent supposed to. Whoops! But it confirms your ASIC theory. 15:45~16:05 is a dead give away, even before I read that sheet. That layout is textbook "FPGA synthesis complete in-house, okay, send it over to ONsemi to get an ASIC tapeout"
Mike, thanks for sending me the Seek microbolometer. I'll get some SEM shots soon. Nice teardown!
Very cool. What's the field of view of your microscope?
I believe you reached the ultimate level of teardown with this chip de-layering and x-raying !
We must go deeper. He must do a teardown of an atom. :))
aserta He don't have too. The inventor of the atom, IBM, has the schematic.
I guess you need to check this out, for Part II:
czcams.com/video/ny17r03uj9Y/video.html
That's what I call high quality nerd-entertainment...
I love your videos, Mike!
Nerdtainment.
Amazingly detailed teardown. I guess the only thing left for you is to build your own scanning electron microscope, a la Applied Science.
thanks for the teardown mike, awesome work!
Hi Mike, great video, that metal plating is some kind of electroless coating that they offer now, I've quoted a while back and it wasn't expensive at all. They do all kinds of electroless coatings here in the UK on metal and plastics, not all plastics though. Anyway, keep them up, great stuf!
The Sonicut 30 was sold by Branson Ultrasonics in the US, for around $575 in 1990...really not too bad a price for something like that.
Yup the gold was applied using a metal vapor deposition process. Its similar to the aluminum coating process on cheap plastic silverware.❤
the metal on the lens housing looks like LPKF MID process ( injection molded plastic that can get metal deposits on it ) : www.lpkf.com/products/mid/lpkf-lds-process.htm
Wow! It must have cost an arm and a leg to develop. Nice Mike.
Excellent teardown!
Mike - is the Mantis the microscope you use to show the die structures? Also, I've had success removing glued-on die covers by attaching the die to a piece of aluminum with epoxy and then gently rubbing it against super fine sandpaper until I can see that I've worn a hole through it. Then I can take very fine tweezers or a very fine knife blade and crack off pieces of the cover via the opening I've made.
It looks like CZcams screwed up the video formatting when it converted the video.
Anyone have any idea on the dimensions of the legs of the micro-bolometer? They look very narrow, definitely less than 1 um, perhaps even 200 nm.
Can you tell me what model of microscope are you using? Thanks.
Why did you letterbox a 16:9 video in 4:3 then letterbox that again in 16:9 (youtube player)?
No idea - Vegas or CZcams did it.
And 720p is not available :(
Toma Marini Just stop moaning and watch the video.
Brafilus The original 16:9 content is encoded as 4:3 for sure, but its the youtube player doing the last conversion; renders properly on my 5:4 monitor, but probably looks poo on a 16:9 screen.
mikeselectricstuff For some reason, right after you cracked the case off of the thing at the beginning, I suddenly had the urge to see how far I could scroll down before finding someone complaining in some way about the video. I didn't even notice the letterboxing to be honest, because i was actually interested in the content and not the vagaries of the medium in which it is conveyed.I think some folks are just OCD about this kind of thing, and that's fine, we all have our quirks. Mine seems to be the desire to complain about said people in an annoyingly verbose way. Unfortunately you can't do much about either, so sorry if it compounds the negativity. :) Just wanted to say 'video is fine' and thank you for doing it. I'm so happy to see thermal imagery coming down out of the stratosphere, i think it really could open up a lot of new ways learn about the world around us. Hopefully high speed cameras follow suit. :)
It would be interesting to use a couple of these and a VR goggle setup to get a sort of 3D thermal imaging
Shhhh. Us military is listening
Thanks Mike. What microscope are you using ?
Mike, awesome!
Time to put it back in it's box and send it back to amazon.
The detail from the xray is amazing, what you need next is a friend who can knock you up an electron microscope ;P
This was an extreme teardown indeed!
So if these pixels are that easy to blow away - how would this sensor handle vibration or let's say falling from a meter or two?
Well, when you've dismantled it to this stage, just don't drop it on the floor !
Of course, if you don't disassemble, it'll withstand far more.
the senor pixels are in a vacuum, so compressed air is not rely a design aspect to say the least. A drop from two meters is a challenge for all bits of electronics. Try it out, but do not complain when you stuff breaks. The only thing to make equipment survive that is by shock absorption, speak packaging.
When dropping it from two meters, I think you would kill the conventional solder joints, so killing the pixels is kind of a non issue.
A custom tray to transport this sensor is a requirement - but as the pick and place machine needs a defined packaging, this is a given any way.
Also: The sensor elements are pretty light weight - gravity can not apply that much force. Compressed air on the other side: The pixel is relatively thin for it surface, acting as a kind of sail.
To Mooses argument: Valid - but dust is the more prevalent problem. It is a chip or to be more specific micro-mechanic. So the dies need to be handled carefully anyway.
G forces are listed in their datasheets.
2:40 -"hack" lol... I've wanted to see inside one of these sensors for a long time.
Peter Carlson
Me too!
How do they manage to make those things?? By hand or by robot?
by hand. 200.000 units a day
Photolithography.. They design the circuits in a large scale, then scale it down by something like a photocopier with a minimize feature... read about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photolithography
WOW
Bloody Hell !!!!!! Is this even human technology? Maybe Mike is the alien? I want to scrape shit and xray them now. Oh, I blame you for my financial demise.
Eyeballing it, that metallic layer seems to be too thick for commercial vapor deposition. I'd put my money on the component being injection molded in the factory, cooled, then a process similar to vaccum forming but instead of using standard polymer, you use pre-heated composite metal (selected for proper thermal [you want it to reach an elastic state as low as possible], conductive, and budget properties].. www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=914 edit: that being said I haven't ever done a production run of anything that even needed VD, but even with Flir's budget, it doesn't seem economically viable, especially as they'd have to go to a specialty house just for that component.
+wither8 /FLIR_Lepton_Data_Brief.pdf Sparkfun put out a datasheet they werent supposed to. Whoops! But it confirms your ASIC theory. 15:45~16:05 is a dead give away, even before I read that sheet. That layout is textbook "FPGA synthesis complete in-house, okay, send it over to ONsemi to get an ASIC tapeout"
Quite interesting but a little bit boring.
Very nice details
Warning to headphone users: He has an ultrasonic tool, so be aware.
If the teardown of this sensor is so interesting I would imagine a project resulting from all this reverse engineering would be very cool.
Mike needs a manicure :D
Shagas Heizenberg
People with nice manicured hands don't do much REAL work.
Not all REAL work is physical , but I get your point ;)