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Creating high resolution integrated circuit die photos with Hugin or ICE

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Original source (www.righto.com)
Tags: integrated-circuits metallurgical-microscope ic-die-imaging image-composite-editor hugin-panorama www.righto.com
Clipped on: 2017-09-16

Xerox Alto restoration, IC reverse engineering, chargers, and whatever

Creating high resolution integrated circuit die photos with Hugin or ICE

Have you ever wanted to take a bunch of photos of an integrated circuit die and combine them into a high-res image? The stitching software can be difficult, so I've written a guide to the process I use. These tips may also be useful for other Hugin panoramas.

The first step is to take a bunch of photos of the die with a microscope. I used an old Motorola 6820 PIA (Peripheral Interface Adapter) chip. This chip had a metal cap over the die that popped off easily with a chisel, exposing the die. The 6820 is notable as the keyboard interface chip in the Apple I computer.

Image (Asset 1/21) alt=Thanks for your excellent post. You mentioned AmScope microscope.
at Amazon.
I am also thinking about buying a good (metalurgical) miscroscope.
Not sure yet how metalurgical microscope works but I would need a good microscope to check digitizers/touch of touch mobiles. We repair mobiles and sometimes a digitizer stops working and we would need to check ( wire) traces in the digitizer.
Would you recommend that kind of microscope for that task?
Thank you.

December 24, 2015 at 8:33 AM
Image (Asset 2/21) alt=I'm no expert on this, but I think you'd want a lower-power binocular microscope rather than a metallurgical microscope for checking wire traces, something like this one.

December 24, 2015 at 9:52 AM
Image (Asset 3/21) alt=Thank you for your reply.
The lower-power binocular microscope seems to have a low magnification.( we already have one). As far as I know a metallurgical microscope is a kind of microscopes that have fairly high magnification and for that reason I was thinking about a metallurgical microscope.
Can you please explain when a metallurgical scope is/not useful ?
Thank you

December 24, 2015 at 12:04 PM
Image (Asset 4/21) alt=Yes, I need high magnification yet
I am not still sure if it is possible to use a metallurgical microscope for a touch screen( also called a digitizer) that is transparent.
What do you think?
Thank you for

December 28, 2015 at 9:51 AM
Image (Asset 5/21) alt=The microscope you used has 40X-2000X Magnification.What magnification did you use for those
pictures you posted in this topic?

I was thinking about buying a metallurgical microscope for some time already but the price is still rather high and not sure if it works for our needs.
Would you mind taking a few pictures of a touch/digitizer of a mobile phone with your AmScope metallurgical microscope? (I can not imagine how a metallurgical scope displays a digitizer of mobile phone.)
Thank you very much again for your time and help

December 31, 2015 at 12:37 PM
Image (Asset 6/21) alt=It seems the metallurgical microscope to be useful for me too.
And what magnification did you use for that picture of the Screen pixels?

The microscope from Amazon( you provided a link) has 40X-2000X Magnification. But you use mostly 100x.
When can be useful to have a such large 2000x magnification?
(I am asking to choose the best microscope ( for me) regarding magnification/price.)
Thank you again for help.

January 1, 2016 at 11:37 PM
Image (Asset 7/21) alt=