# Interesting chips of Hard Drives Logic Boards



## Alentia (Dec 1, 2013)

Just wanted to post a picture of the chips. Brown part is just a cover and all PMs are exposed when brown part is mechanically removed. While part not only soldered to the board but glued as well. I am not 100% sure which drives they came from as I have a mixture of old ATs, IDEs, SCSIs and ATAs. Wonder if any one is familiar with them. If I have enough of them, I may assay a sample.


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## macfixer01 (Dec 1, 2013)

Alentia said:


> Just wanted to post a picture of the chips. Brown part is just a cover and all PMs are exposed when brown part is mechanically removed. While part not only soldered to the board but glued as well. I am not 100% sure which drives they came from as I have a mixture of old ATs, IDEs, SCSIs and ATAs. Wonder if any one is familiar with them. If I have enough of them, I may assay a sample.




Based on it's content that would appear to be just a crystal, not a chip. It generates a 15 Mhz clock frequency I'd assume from the markings?


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## johnny309 (Dec 3, 2013)

It is a crystal oscilator ( the freqvency in KHz)... better(from the point a view of gold content) are those iron capsule and gold solder on the edge,like this:

http://www.google.ro/imgres?imgurl=http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00jsuELUHKOacP/SMD-Crystal-Oscillator-3225-.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/szcrystals/product-detailxMfJYdKTCZcC/China-SMD-Crystal-Oscillator-3225-.html&h=307&w=406&sz=19&tbnid=IGu1Cxw7maIR-M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=119&zoom=1&usg=__hhISBp_rWSadnkn374IejYzWCSc=&docid=VZ6l_RrCjJJnMM&sa=X&ei=jQeeUtarBoSVswbMsIH4CA&ved=0CFUQ9QEwBA


http://www.frequencymanagement.com/


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## macfixer01 (Dec 3, 2013)

johnny309 said:


> It is a crystal oscilator ( the freqvency in KHz)... better(from the point a view of gold content) are those iron capsule and gold solder on the edge,like this:
> 
> http://www.google.ro/imgres?imgurl=http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00jsuELUHKOacP/SMD-Crystal-Oscillator-3225-.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/szcrystals/product-detailxMfJYdKTCZcC/China-SMD-Crystal-Oscillator-3225-.html&h=307&w=406&sz=19&tbnid=IGu1Cxw7maIR-M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=119&zoom=1&usg=__hhISBp_rWSadnkn374IejYzWCSc=&docid=VZ6l_RrCjJJnMM&sa=X&ei=jQeeUtarBoSVswbMsIH4CA&ved=0CFUQ9QEwBA
> 
> ...




Could be kilohertz or megahertz. Since it's not marked in units and crystals in the kilohertz range have very limited uses anymore, I'd assume it's megahertz. Also it's not an oscillator because although it has 4 contacts, you can see internally they're linked in pairs. With effectively only 2 contacts it can't be an oscillator. An oscillator would require power and ground, and would also require an oscillator circuit on an internal chip which is not in evidence here. It would also need at least one additional external contact not connected to VCC or ground, for the output.


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## Alentia (Dec 4, 2013)

There is strong Pt presence. 
I am currently in the process of assaying 5 of those in a tube.


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## johnny309 (Dec 5, 2013)

Sorry...,but in my line of work we call those "crystal oscillator"......and......so do others..... : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_oscillator
Quartz oscillator is the piece displayed and the crystal oscillator is the circuit in which is put.


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## rucito (Dec 5, 2013)

maybe "quartz resonator" is the correct name


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## malfeces (Oct 8, 2015)

So I imagine these would be processed the same way as say ceramic CPU's?


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## johnny309 (Oct 9, 2015)

The pure "glass" ....which is called quartz..... is plated with Ag and then ,by laser cutting from the silver layer is adjusted to the desired frequency .


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