This month’s ware is pictured below. Click on the photos for a much larger version.

This month’s ware is a user-submitted ware. This ware doesn’t quite qualify as a “production” ware but it does qualify as a very interesting ware, partially because of its vintage and its relative sophistication. I’d be surprised if anyone out there could exactly identify what this ware is, but I’m thinking someone out there can at least name the general function and origin of this ware…when I name the winner I’ll post some interesting details about the ware!

Well, that last ware was surprisingly easy to guess. I have a couple more blank PCBs I’m going to try in the future, they should be a little more difficult to guess — they don’t have any keyboard lands to help with identifying the design. Still, I’m impressed that people figured it out so quickly. I’m convinced by johnny ^_^’s guess that it’s an HTC Touchpro 2, so he’s the winner! congrats, email me to claim your prize!

The Ware for July 2009 is shown below. Click on the image for a much larger version.

I thought I’d try something new for this competition. Above is a scan of a completely blank PCB. I don’t actually know what it’s from. I just bought it from a vendor in the Shenzhen mobile phone market who also didn’t know what it’s from — it was just used for shop decoration to attract customers. Since I actually don’t know what it’s for, I’ll have to rely on the depth of your comments to convince me. If nobody can convince me, then there would be no winner. On the other hand, it’s quite possible I could choose a winner who incorrectly identifies the ware, but that’s ok — this game has always been more about explanation and sharing thought processes, rather than about absolute accuracy.

I do think a blank PCB like this is fairly interesting to post for a number of reasons. First of all, it gives you a real appreciation for the sheer density of routing on a mobile phone motherboard. Second of all, this is a great example of an HDI-buildup, blind/buried via PCB. If you look at the large version of the scan, you can see the dimples where they used a laser, instead of a drill, to cut tiny vias into the outer layers of the circuit boards. There are almost no through-holes, and via-in-pad (typically forbidden when using through-hole vias) is very common in this design. Finally, this pair of PCBs is actually still in its manufacturing frame, which reveals a number of test structures that you never see (visible on the right hand side) that are used to verify that the PCB’s construction is correct.

You can also see in here how the two copies of the board are inverted across the horizontal mid-plane. I’m not 100% sure why they do this, but I suspect it has to do with balancing throughput on the SMT line. One side of the PCB is very dense with components and the other side isn’t. Since the board has components on both sides, you will have to flip the board over at least once to process each side. On high-throughput SMT lines, this means that you’ll have two (expensive) SMT pick/place (or chip shooting) machines back to back, one to handle the top, and the other to handle the bottom after flipping. If you have both boards top-side up, then the SMT machine handling the denser top side would run much longer than the one handling the sparser bottom side, and you would effectively be idling one machine for a relatively long period of time. This would increase the amount of capital you have to spend to scale your production line and require greater amortization for a given throughput, ultimately driving up product cost (or reducing your net profit). Mirroring the board about a central axis also allows you to use the exact same programming for the two back-to-back SMT machines (separated by a robotic flipping mechanism) so you only have to optimize one SMT program, although at the expense of possibly having to incorporate a greater mix of parts within a single SMT machine.

The Ware for June 2009 was a Hoya L-210-P2 laser power supply. It’s used to drive a high energy pulse laser at 532nm, and it’s used as part of a probe station setup that’s capable of cutting metal wires on integrated circuits. There’s one unfortunate part about using a 532nm laser to try and cut metal wires on a chip: with modern ICs pushing 45nm geometries, a 532nm laser is more like a sledgehammer and less of a scalpel for doing circuit edits.

At any rate, this Ware generated quite a comment thread–I didn’t think it would be so interesting or difficult to guess. Many people came close and a couple even guessed it. For being the first to guess correctly, as well as for the detailed and thoughtful comments, KE5FX is the winner of this competition. Very good sleuthing and great intuition; send me an email to claim a prize. Thanks to everyone who played!

As requested, here’s some links to larger photos of the ware: 1 2

The Ware for June 2009 is pictured below. Click on the image for a much larger version.

I’m hoping this month’s ware will be a little bit harder to guess than last month’s. Some of the case details are cropped out so as to make it more challenging. I think this image of the “pointy end” of the ware should be enough for people to at least identify the purpose of this ware, if not the exact make/model.