What is the best way to remove the chip numbers/information from the top of the chips on a PCB? (so that no one knows what chip was used...).
- posted
18 years ago
What is the best way to remove the chip numbers/information from the top of the chips on a PCB? (so that no one knows what chip was used...).
file or potting.
A belt sander will do it, but really, it's generally not a good idea. It only advertises that you think your profit margin is too high, and any engineer worth their salt can figure it out pretty quickly anyhow.
Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
-- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
I wouldn't bother - makes your product look amateurish and won't take someone long to figure it out anyway unless it's a really obscure chip, or used in a particularly unusual way.
Just slap a big ugly cheap paper "QC" label on the chip in question -- but stick it on with epoxy.
long to figure it out
way.
You can never make your product completely secure. What you can try to do is make the cost of reverse-engineering high enough to make it unprofitable. Sometimes raising the bar a little -- making it difficult rather than trivial -- is all it takes.
Regards, -=Dave
-- Change is inevitable, progress is not.
An "air eraser" does the trick. It's quite fast and easier than a file or sander. You'll need to have good dust management in place, though.
-- Rich Webb Norfolk, VA
Bend all the pins over and solder it to the board upside down...
Then add a heatsink to some random bit of low power logic.
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