# ultraSPARC ii CPU's



## nimrood (Jul 14, 2011)

Has anyone ever processed or worked with SMI's ultraSPARC II CPU's??

I received about 45 chips of various ultraSPARC II and IIi processors recently, and began performing some tests on them today to determine how to process them. They are c. 1995-1996 era chips, dark ceramic, no pins (I forget what it's called but the underside has gold contacts), and an IHS on top of the ceramic (see pics below). They are fairly small at 35mm (ultraSPARC II) and 37mm (ultraSPARC IIi) square.

The gold contacts on the bottom come off easily in a HNO3 bath, but dissolve in a 2:1 (3% H2O2) AP solution at ambient temperature of 80F-90F... the contacts must be pretty thin to dissolve in AP. Or, it's just too hot here in the south to use AP outside in summer weather.

What is puzzling me right now is the heat spreader. It doesn't seem to react to HCl, or visibly with AP; it reacts minimally to HNO3, and slightly more if I sand the IHS down a bit then apply HNO3 (see pics). I'm guessing the IHS is some type of copper/nickel/aluminum alloy -- I've been unable to Google-up any information on it.

I was wondering if anyone has encountered these and has information on them in terms of PM recovery?

ultraSPARC II:



ultraSPARC II w/ two HNO3 test drops: One spot sanded (clearly visible), and the other not so visible (top CPU) on the top-left corner:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jul 14, 2011)

Minimal PM recovery there, if you will take a saw blade to the piece you are asking about you will see it is copper.


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## nimrood (Jul 22, 2011)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> Minimal PM recovery there, if you will take a saw blade to the piece you are asking about you will see it is copper.



Unfortunately, I don't have a saw blade. However, from the time I made that post until today -- I ordered some K2Cr2O7 and Sn powders for making test solutions. Best as I can tell, the IHS on these ultraSPARC's are copper, and including possible tin/lead/aluminum as larger percentage of metal. Disappointing.


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## Smack (Jul 23, 2011)

heat them with propane torch and the heat sinks will fall off


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