That is a really nice find, more than one bond wire to the same pad to keep the resistive losses down and not burn the wires with too high current. Nice thick wires.
Göran
Göran
My results of specific types of IC chips, flatpacks and BGA
- Thread starter Tzoax
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Tzoax
Well-known member
kernels said:
Thank you Hein. I started to make application that will make some things much easier to find / learn and estimate - related to smd components.
shmandi said:
Artūrs, i have some good news for you - i found some "TO" packages that do contains gold. It is best to process them altogether like Patnor said. Some packages doesn't contain gold, but it would be very time consuming to separate them - i think it is best to process these together, unless you are cherry picking.
Tzoax
Well-known member
shmandi said:
You have right about dimensions of chipfets.
I measured this package i found on laptop motherboard and dimensions are same like chipfet.
It have 6 pads on the bottom and a same shape like chipfet package.
I managed to take out these 3 gold bonding wires that were still connected to a dice to take a picture and to compare thickness with a hair.
I am not sure that this is a chipfet package, but surely - there is a gold inside of it.
niks neims
Well-known member
Tzoax said:
Hey, thank you man, that is good news! I did not know that before
AND they look similar enough to those very common on motherboards, I will try to dismantle & check some of them next time I am depopulating Weird coincidence: Recently, while searching for refiners/traders near me, for the first time, I actually stumbled upon a Lithuanian e-scrap trader (novitera.lt) that is buying "Plastic case transistors" spesifically...; not too much, though - only 12 eur/kg... I guess it makes sense since so many types are made without Au bond wires....
Could try recover them myself, yield of 3.6 g Au/KG is nice enough even for an ICs... For a component weight of 6.85g it would mean they yield about ~ 0.80 eur each (for reference, by my math, average plastic top type BGA (~4g netto * 5g Au/kg) is worth about 0.70 eur each....), and I seem to recall to have seen few types of motherboarts where there are plenty of those little buggers - 10 or more!! I would think it definitely qualifies them for cherry-picking.... only thing that I am not shure about is "Brominated Compounds - 31.22 mg" - sounds unhealthy... :/ Does anyone have any expirience working with that kind of material... shure, pyrolization and incineration of epoxy first, but after that? they are very, very high in copper - 68% of mass... Pyro&Inci->wash->AP->HCL->AR->$$$? Any other suggestions?
-Artūrs
Tzoax
Well-known member
Unfortunately the above package where i made pictures is not a chipfet package. I should check the markings first. The marking of that component is AAUAH. I found one of many good websites to check these markings/codes and to see exactly what type of component that is - and more importantly - information about package. After clicking at first two letters of code (in this case AA) a new screen appeared to continue searching all component markings starting with AA.
http://www.s-manuals.com/smd
Then i found exactly what i was needed - AAU**. That represents all components starting with AAU and any of 2 letters that comes after that. So, this component i was hoping that was chipfet - is actually Linear Voltage Regulator, and the package is SOT-26.
So i tried to find more information about this package - SOT-26 and i found it contains only 0.6g of gold per kg according to this document:
This is first time i read codes/markings from components and i think this is very good way to identify component before testing.
I found that chipfet markings starts with C1.
After all, it seems that this type of package is not too common in PC's.
Another component i found to be interesting for checking is SOD-123 package diodes. Allegedly there is 25g of gold per kg. I never processed diodes. I will try to find couple of them (by markings) and to check them. It is crucial to check markings first because package SOD-123FL contains no gold.
Alex
http://www.s-manuals.com/smd
Then i found exactly what i was needed - AAU**. That represents all components starting with AAU and any of 2 letters that comes after that. So, this component i was hoping that was chipfet - is actually Linear Voltage Regulator, and the package is SOT-26.
So i tried to find more information about this package - SOT-26 and i found it contains only 0.6g of gold per kg according to this document:
This is first time i read codes/markings from components and i think this is very good way to identify component before testing.
I found that chipfet markings starts with C1.
After all, it seems that this type of package is not too common in PC's.
Another component i found to be interesting for checking is SOD-123 package diodes. Allegedly there is 25g of gold per kg. I never processed diodes. I will try to find couple of them (by markings) and to check them. It is crucial to check markings first because package SOD-123FL contains no gold.
Alex
niks neims, Bromine is not so bad. Go to the dead sea at certain times you can breath the stuff.
Of course like anything, too much is too much.
Of course like anything, too much is too much.
niks neims
Well-known member
Platdigger said:
Isn`t it? How come I am always reading warnings here about brominated fire suppressants? So You`d suggest those TO-247 can be burned in similar setup as standart IC`s ?
-Artūrs
Well, the toxics that are released when you burn or even roast any of these chips are about as nasty as you can get.
Tzoax
Well-known member
niks neims said:Hey, thank you man, that is good news! I did not know that before
Weird coincidence: Recently, while searching for refiners/traders near me, for the first time, I actually stumbled upon a Lithuanian e-scrap trader (novitera.lt) that is buying "Plastic case transistors" spesifically...; not too much, though - only 12 eur/kg... I guess it makes sense since so many types are made without Au bond wires....
-Artūrs
Artūrs, i just checked one motherboard transistor for gold content.
First i found model - in this case it is L1085DG.
Then i found datasheet PDF about this model to find out exact package.
As you can see this model is made in couple of packages - TO-252, TO-263 (2-lead), TO-263 (3-lead) and TO-220. So from this diagram we can see that in our case model matches with TO-252 package.
http://www.datasheetspdf.com/pdf/790945/Niko-Sem/L1085DG/1
I incinerated it and detected gold bonding wires inside. One more reason to consider there are gold bonding wires - at least inside of these smaller size transistor packages - TO-252.
That is such a wrong statement. It all depends on what compound it is in. Elemental bromine does not occur naturally and would have similar effects like chlorine gas. Organic compounds with bromine in it's structure is too numerous to mention, but some can disrupt hormones while other are both toxic and carcinogenic. What is produced when we incinerate plastics with bromated compounds is impossible to tell. With an afterburner you will probably end up with mostly HBr but there will always be some other combinations going up in that smoke. To say that it is safe to breath is far from the truth.Platdigger said:
Göran
All I know is I have seen pictures taken at the dead sea and the cloud or the mist they were in was said to be bromine. I don't think it is all the time.
As far as breathing anything from an incineration of any of this electronic stuff of course I would never say to even get one breath of that..stuff.
As far as breathing anything from an incineration of any of this electronic stuff of course I would never say to even get one breath of that..stuff.
Tzoax
Well-known member
Currently i am preparing mixed small BGA chips for another yield test.
It takes too much time to manually remove silicon dies and this fiber/wool like material.
Next time i am processing this kind of IC chips i will grind them to ashes without separating anything - i just realized i don't accomplish anything by separating it.
It takes too much time to manually remove silicon dies and this fiber/wool like material.
Next time i am processing this kind of IC chips i will grind them to ashes without separating anything - i just realized i don't accomplish anything by separating it.
kernels
Well-known member
Yep, I just finished a batch of these a few weeks ago, ball-milled after pyrolization, yield was 3.6g/kg, I have had everything between 2.x and 5.x g/kg from these. Looking forward to seeing your result.
Tzoax, are you giving those BGAs a run through some HCl before firing to remove the solder?
Tzoax
Well-known member
kernels said:
Thats great, thanks for info, did you had any problems with this "fiber wool like" material after ball milling?
UncleBenBen said:
No, i remove solder balls with chisel and process it separately (and testing yields). So far i collected about 350g for next test. In my opinion it makes sense because of two reasons - first because when i take off BGA/small BGA chips with chisel from any PCB - there is always some of BGA solder balls that stays soldered on both sides - PCB pad + BGA pad - in other words if i include solder balls weight to "start material weight" i would have to take off solder balls from PCB and include it to BGA's - and because the both methods requires same amount of work i choose to separate solder balls from any of BGA/small BGA chips at start and look at them like different refining materials - and that way i already solved "tin problem" and made BGA chips more "cleaner" material.
And second reason is that (based on my own results when processing BGA solder balls) - solder balls needs longer and different treatment than BGA chips - processing it together makes it more harder and complicated.
My result was 1.42g of gold / kg of solder balls when i first time tested it:
https://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=22951&start=90#p267815
patnor1011
Well-known member
I do soak them in HCl that take care of solder just fine.
That wool like mushy fiber material is a pain in the $$ to deal with. You cant really separate it as bonding wires get stuck in it. I do incinerate it completely with torch. Takes a while but they burn to ash.
That wool like mushy fiber material is a pain in the $$ to deal with. You cant really separate it as bonding wires get stuck in it. I do incinerate it completely with torch. Takes a while but they burn to ash.
Tzoax
Well-known member
patnor1011 said:
Yes, i checked it with microscope and many of gold bonding wires are tangled there... that is why next time i will burn these with torch like i did last time. This time i burned IC's with torch and then i finished incineration on electric hotplate - obviously that is reason why there is so much of that material left - thank you.
Other reason i don't process BGA solder balls together with BGA chips - when tin from solder dissolves in HCl - form of gold that is released (from it) in solution could easily be lost during washing with water (since gold from solder is not heavy like gold bonding wires). I don't know form of gold that is in solder - it could be fine powder or small flakes - but in any case it is easy to lost during washing - i am not sure if this is true, it just seems logic.
Next reason is other contaminants from solder like lead, silver etc....that just complicates things later. Of course - it is not that big problem to get rid of silver chloride, lead chloride and other metal chlorides from solder that are created, but i prefer to avoid complications and problems as much as i can and keep starting material clear as possible.
Another reason is that processing small BGA chips without solder balls is finished fast in AR - about an hour, when i processed solder balls it lasts much longer - many hours of simmer boiling, filtering hot HCl (and water) solution to remove lead chloride, another incineration, grinding etc. When i imagine i would have to do all of that with concentrates (of BGA IC chips) present - it feels like much greater and complicated job to me.
The gold in the solder is alloyed with the tin. Gold is easily dissolved in molten tin, when the solder solidifies gold and other minor metals "precipitates" as tiny particles at the crystal boundaries between the tin crystals. When the tin dissolves in acid the tiny particles of gold is freed from the solder and forms a black sludge, like black gold particles that never wants to settle from a dirty drop.Tzoax said:
Göran
Tzoax
Well-known member
g_axelsson said:
And that is exactly main reason why solder balls should be processed separately in my opinion. Thank you for explanation.
Alex
