Flat chips on mother boards

[Anonymous]

They would only be worth seperating from the board if you have a lot of them and a lot of extra time.The easiest way I have found to extract them is to keep the bottom attached to the board and knock the top off with a very small chisel or a small trowel and a light tap with a hammer or mallet.Then you can seperate the bottom half from the board using the same process.

 

[JustinNH]

I have opened up some of those with the gold in the corner and some have a fair amount of gold in the inside, and some have tiny gold wires in them, so they are definately worth saving!

Even the ones without the gold int he corner, that are attached to the boards in a similar way (just need to pop them off as opposed to cutting all the edges where they are attached) tend to have a good amount of gold in them. Of course, thats just from what Ive seen- as each one is differs from manufacturer and purpose... and im just startin out at this.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the chips which you are talking about are the onboard sound (smaller one) and onboard graphics (larger one) cards. They are usually from the same manufacturer and come as a set.

Mike

 

[Jehu]

sorry for the bump but I think this might help help in clearing upwhat these chips are. I'm a computer tech by trade and can tell you what most of these chips do.

The 2 big chips on the motherboard, the ones in the photo posted before, are the main chipset IC's known as the North and South bridge. They interface the CPU to the other controllers on the motherboard. They have to deal with high speed interconnects so they should by rights have gold or silver in them for the sake of reducing electrical resistance.

The other smaller chips are controllers for the BIOS, sound, network and hard drive interfaces, so there maybe PMs in these too.

Also in the manufactoring of IC's, I believe that Gallium Arsanideis used. I'm not sure if that is of any interest. Also Iridium is used in the manufacturing of TFT LCD displays. I don't know if you have found a way of recovering it from these screens yet but it could become valueble soon as the LCD industry is quickly gobbling up the worlds supply of Iridium. Also Okley sunglasses have an Iridium coating on some of the lenses.

Don't know if this helps but I hope it does.

 

[jimdoc]

Jehu,
Are you sure you don't mean indium in the LCD screens?
I have never heard of iridium being used in them.
Jim

 

[Jehu]

Ahh, yes I think you're right on that one. Wikipedia says that it's Indium but I always take any info from there with a grain of Sodium Chloride. But I have heard that Iridium is used in them too. I'll have to back through my info.