Salvaged Silicon

Have you ever taken a close look…

… at a silicon die? The little chunk of magic that sits inside the microprocessors you use all day, every day?

A very basic microprocessor

If you haven’t, then you really should. These things are absolutely amazing and make for some very interesting photographs. But they are small. In fact, the components that have been almost magically deposited on the surface of the semiconductor are truly minuscule. These are subjects that need to be photographed with high quality microscope optics. And that is just what macro photographers, like me, do!

A slightly more complicated chip

But this post isn’t about photographing these cool subjects - it’s about where to find them and, specifically, how to salvage them from old electronics (old, for electronics, may only be a couple of years!).

In this episode of the vlog, I’ll show you where to find them, how to remove them from the electronics, and, most critically (and difficultly), how to recover the silicon chips from their epoxy crypts.

I had a good chuckle making this one. Hope you get a smile from watching it!