On 08/06/2015 02:25 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
It could also be a chip used to test an auto-insertion machine or wave
solder machine. If memory serves, they'll use correctly pinned but "fake"
parts to test those processes before moving to the more expensive real
thing.
Yes, there were a few companies that made dummy chips for exactly that
reason. These days, the robots are much better, so I doubt the
practice of using dummy chips still exists.
They definitely still exist. I doubt many people use them
for P&P testing, except maybe the people who MAKE the P&P
machines. But, larger outfits do extensive thermal
profiles, cross-section microscopic examinations of solder
joints and all sorts of exhaustive tests on soldering and
other parts of the process. They use the dummy chips for
testing the quality of these processes. They may run 25
boards with different thermal profiles to find out what
gives the best soldering results.
Jon
