Hello all, I want to know the methods of diagnosing and repairing Masked ICs and components as I don't have the program source code and also don't have any known - good PCB so as to compare it on Polar Fault Locator or,Huntron or by using software System -8. One more thing to ask that how can we do reverse Engineering i.e; troubleshooting of PCbs witout having any circuit or schematic diagram ? What advancements have been taken in this regard? Thanks in advanc Regards Sadia
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Nice questions. Not so nice, short answer "Too expensive."
You can reverse engineer a PCB in the old fashioned way: Hands, eyes, magnifying glass, multimeter, datasheets of the used components and lots of time. I know, I've done this before.
To reverse engineer a mask programmed IC you need a well equiped labaratory. You will need to remove the package material of the chip and use a microscope to view and fotograph the upper layer of the masks. Then you need to remove the upper layer by grinding and polishing to make the subsequent layer(s) visible. Knowing the masks, you can find out what the program was supposed to do.
Even if you've done all this you may fail to repair the board correctly when you have no working sample to compare.
Once you know perfectly well what the board is supposed to do, I guess you'd better design a new board yourself.
I can't be sure but maybe you'll get more specific answers if your questions are made more specific.
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