Weird component (?) - WTF is it?

Maybe an RF power transistor. The use of a leadframe, that the finished parts are later removed from by a die, is unremarkable, but I don't recognize the package type offhand.

Eg.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Just a swag but considering the relative population sizes of fancy RF gear and cheap electronics I'd guess that what you have is part of a keypad assembly for some consumer electronics remote control unit.

The background (scanner cover?) is almost the same color/texture as the epoxy so it's a bit hard to make out which parts of the inner cutouts are filled and which are background.

But the formfactor looks about right for a handheld gadget.

:-) From those photos it looks like the strip you drive over to prevent you reversing back into the car park!!

Yours, Mark.

Lew> The other day at work, I found a very odd electronic component in the

Lewin, you could have put some recognisable scale alongside this before taking a photo of this device. It would have helped us be more certain.

I am guessing that this may be a Power MOSFET probably in the RF region as this seems most logical to my thinking and knowledge about how such things are produced. The lead frame is broken away before they devices are tested and shipped. Maybe the other side still needs some potting. I don't think that these particular ones would be working though.

With a scale, as I sdaid, we could be much more certain about this.

That's very plausible, given that I work in the Short Range Radio group, and the parking lot I use is in between the Short Range Radio and Long Range Radio buildings. I'm thinking a vendor probably dropped it, or maybe one of the guys coming over from the CAD building where all our specification sheets are stored.

Maybe it is a mechanical dummy used to test assembly equipment, or something of the kind (hence the total lack of part# markings).

Hi,

Well gee, I thought the dimensions I just gave were pretty close to being a scale, no? The short dimension is ~2.25", the long dimension is ~7"

Yes, but I didn't tell you where I work... for various reasons, it's not on my resume :) Thousands of "fancy RF gear" type parts go through our hands every day. Mind you, thousands of keypads go through our hands every day, too, so the question might be seen as equally balanced. But nothing we make is in quite that form factor.

The thing that makes me think it isn't a handheld thingy is that each blob has an individual mold-pos mark. That implies that the items are eventually destined for separation. If it was some kind of keypad or something of the kind, those items would be molded together and STAY together. Plus the arrangement of copper and the type of material those blobs are made of is just too suspiciously "semiconductorish".

It's possible that these things were samples of a custom transistor. We're big enough that practically every part we buy is house-numbered, and a few of those parts are "legacy" devices for which we are the sole customer. It's possible that these devices are a packaging option of some device that, to the rest of the world, is only available in a through-hole package. That could be why they aren't marked with any type identification; they can't be so marked until we assign a part number to them.

Oh my, that's the latest super-secret doobry that your employer has spent $100M developing for DOD over the last few years. Don't know what's going to happen to the incompetent who dropped it, but I've a fair idea what they're going to do to the person that published hi-res jpegs of it on the internet!

Hey, it happens. I'll sell you the remaining piece for the bargain price of $1M.

That's what I get for reading newsgroups at the end of a very long and busy day I suppose (had a day working on the boat followed by a dash down to Bristol and back to pick up my son). I should have read the text a bit closer.