Break IC, Recover MCU, Microcontroller Reverse Engineering

Archive for the ‘PCB Repair’ Category

Restructuring and cost-saving initiatives seems to have turned FIH Mobile (previously Foxconn International Holdings) back to profit in 1H13.
The handset maker reported a net profit of USD 17’66 million for the 1H13, compared to the USD 226.07 million loss during 1H12.

If this keeps up, FIH would be on track to post a net profit for the full year – which would be a giant leap from the loss of USD 316.4 million in 2012.

The company reviews its first half of 2013 by stating:“The increase in profit is mainly attributable to the Group’s improved gross profit margins principally as a result of the corresponding improvement in the Group’s yield and operation efficiency, as well as control of the Group’s cost of sales and general and administrative expenses and optimisation of its research and development resources. Also, no asset impairment loss was recorded during the period (2012: USD 56 million),” The company states.

Looking forward, FIH Mobile has a rather reserved outlook, citing that the global economy still has some recovery to do.

”Customers’ trend of outsourcing also directly affects our business. Market share reshuffling among our customers will continue and it will need time and efforts to develop new customers and new businesses for manufacturing other mobile devices. Orders of new customers will need time to be sizeable enough to boost utilisation significantly”, the company rites in a statement.

Read more: http://evertiq.com/news/32232

Norwegian solar company REC, Renewable Energy Company ASA, proposes to improve its debt maturity profile through issuing a new convertible bond loan maturing in 2018.
REC ASA has mandated Arctic Securities ASA to explore the potential issuance of up to USD 110 million (NOK 643 million) in principal amount of convertible bonds with maturity on September 13, 2018.

In conjunction with the issue of the New Convertible Bond Loan, REC ASA will offer to repurchase and exchange bonds in the Company’s Subordinated Unsecured Convertible Bond Issue 2009/2014 for a principal amount of up to EUR 112 million (NOK 876 million), including accrued interest since the July 4, 2013 interest payment date.

Read more: http://evertiq.com/news/32219

A Woodinville, Wash. company contracted by the U.S. Navy to manufacture high-tech components, and the company’s owner recently pleaded guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act, according to an ICP slog post.
The owner of Precision Image Corporation admitted to illegally sending restricted U.S. Navy technical information to a Taiwanese printed board (PCB) manufacturer that was subcontracted to make the printed boards.

The information sent to the Taiwanese PCB manufacturer contained the technical specifications for the printed boards – information listed on the United States Munitions List (USML) and controlled by U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and therefore prohibited from being transmitted outside the U.S. without a license from the State Department.

For the past two years, IPC has been promoting a better understanding of ITAR’s applicability to PCBs in order to protect national security. Launched in July 2012, IPC’s Follow the Law, Protect the Board initiative sought to raise awareness and promote compliance with federal regulations on the export of printed boards designed for ITAR-controlled equipment.

Read more: http://evertiq.com/news/32203

The German component distribution market (according to FBDi eV) grew during the second quarter of 2013 with 2.3%. Orders registered above-average growth.
The state of the German component distribution market is beginning to improvements. According to the FBDi, sales figures increased for the second quarter with 2.3 percent to EUR 712 million compared to the same quarter 2012. The book-to-bill ratio stood at 1.02 (0.96 for the same period last year). The first half ended almost balanced – both turnover and order intake stood at EUR 1.44 billion – which is a promising sign for the second half of the year.

When considering the various component groups, figures for the semiconductor segment have a lot to be desired for: a meager growth of 0.7% to EUR 484 million in turnover. However, order intake was up 8.5% and stood at EUR 497 million. This results in a market share (total component distribution market) of 68%.

This is followed by passive components with a turnover increase of 6.9% to EUR 108 million (representing a 15% market share). With an increase of 3.4% to EUR 75 million in turnover, the segment Electromechanical reached a market share of over 10%. The rest is split between displays, power supplies and sensors.

Read more: http://evertiq.com/news/32198

Anyone who has ever tried to add a modem- or network-card to a PC knows that such an undertaking may produce unwanted results and can take more time than expected. To achieve cost savings from high volume production, the add-in board is designed to be logically compatible to a large variety of motherboards from various vendors. This flexibility makes it necessary to configure the board for its operating environment before it is ready to function. To perform the configuration one needs two pieces of information: sufficient knowledge of the system that the board is expected to reside in and knowledge of the board itself. Once the suitable settings are determined one needs to set jumpers or flip switches on the board. This completes the tricky part of the hardware installation.

Breakerdown Appearances: Welding current of French SAF welding machine can’t shift higher;

Troubleshooting: After PCB Repair of key component we have found the current control circuit board is malfunctions, inspect this PCB and found a operational amplifier chip LF347 has failed, because we don’t have this chip in-stock, so use LM124 as substitute to maintain the machine can keep on working, after 15 days later LM124 fail and LF347 has been bought back not long later and assemble LF347, machine can working properly.

Breakerdown Appearances:

MAZAK CNC Lathe output disorder pointillization, digital enter point status bounce, sometimes is 1 and sometimes is 0.

Troubleshooting:

After PCB Repair, a storage PCB of Mitsubishi CNC system has faulty, there are lots of 74 series chips like 74LS640/244/32/00, additional, one array of RAM chips. Use on-line testing instrument verify all 74 series chips are no problem, but one of RAMs being found has faulty, change this RAM and re-load the parameter, machine can work properly.

When we repair a PCB, if VCC power supply has short circuit issue could be a very complicated matter, since the number of components embed in parallel circuit network between VCC and GND is huge, chips, capacitors, transistors, even anyone of which has short circuit will bring problems to the whole PCB board, the tin solder points and copper of PCB board surface may also cause short circuit. Maintenance personnel will remove the components one by one, until the short circuit phenomenon being eliminated when that causing problem component removed, if bad luck, the root cause of short circuit could not be found even after the components spread PCB board was almost removed completely, not only can not find fault, but also will damage the PCB board.

Hereby we would like to introduce several practical method which can help you save more time and energy:
As for Plug-in capacitors on the PCB board we can use diagonal pliers to cut one foot (Please be noted you should cut from the middle, do not cut from each end  of two sides),  cut power supply VCC pin of plug-in IC, short circuit will disappear when cut one foot, then we can judge that one of capacitors or chips has short circuit issue. If the chip’s package is SMD, we can use solder iron to melt the solder tin on the IC power supply pin which will help to raise the chip away from the VCC power supply. After replacement of related short circuit components at the office or the tilt can be re-weld, and if those capacitors at both ends of the power supply VCC, you can use hot air welding machine to blow them one by one, after remove them, you can use multimeter to test them and got the value, until short-circuit issue being eliminated.

There is also a faster method, but to use a special instrument—milliohmmeter. We know that the PCB board copper foil is also a resistance, if the thickness of copper on the PCB board is 35um, printed circuit wire width is 1mm, then each 10mm long, the resistance value is around 5mΩ, such small resistance can’t  be measured by ordinary multimeter, but milliohmmeter can measure it. We assume one component is short circuit, then measured it with an ordinary multimeter, the result could be 0Ω, but if measured by a milliohmmeter could be tens to hundreds of milliohms, we just put pen table legs on two sides of the short-circuit component, the value of resistance must be minimal (if on the other components on both feet measured, the value of resistance also includes PCB board copper trace resistance), so through compare milliohmmeter resistance differences among different components, when measured to a component (if there is existence of tin solder points and copper trace short circuit will use the same way) which get the minimum value of resistance, it will embrace the biggest suspect. Through this way you can quickly find the point of failure.

When we encounter the short-circuit issue happens on the common power supply unit, it would be very difficult to identity the root cause of short-circuit location since lots of the components connect electrically to this power supply so everyone of them do has the possibility to show the existence of short circuit.

If there is not too much components on the printed circuit board, use the test meter check every items one by one would ultimately find out the breakdown component or short-circuit point, if there is too much components on the printed circuit boards, the energy and time you have to spend on checking everyone one component could draw you out of mind and even though still has possibility that can’t find the short-circuit point if by bad luck. So hereby we would like to recommend a good method which can effectively increase the efficiency of the job:

First, you should have a adjustable power supply, the range of voltage is 0-30V, the range of current 0-3A, set OPEN CIRCUIT VOLTAGE same as the power supply voltage value of being repaired device, set the current value to minimum level, install this power supply onto the supply voltage point of the circuit board such as 5V end and 0V end of 74 series chips, increase the current value according to the level of short-circuit, touch the components by hand to feel its temperature, one of them who has obvious temperature increasing can be defined as problematic one, you can dissemble it from the circuit board to make further confirmation, during this process 2 points need to be ensure:

1 The operating power supply voltage shouldn’t exceed the operating voltage of original device;

2 The polarity of connected points on the power device by no means of reverse.

The root cause of IN-AND-OUT electrical failure can be defined as below situations according to probability of proportion:

(1) Poor contact:

Poor contact occurs among the card slot and golden finger of printed circuit board, breakoff happens on cabled twist through the internal barrier, bad contact on wire cord and/or terminals, components lead COLD SOLDERING on the metal pad of printed circuit board;

(2) Signal interference:
For digital circuits, failure will be presented under certain condition, there may indeed be too much interference affecting the control system, but also parameters of the individual component and/or overall performance parameters of circuit board have changed, so that failure occurs result from the  interference ability tends to the critical point.

(3) Thermal stability of parts:
From great amount of repairing practice and experience, electrolytic capacitors present the worst thermal stability, followed by the other capacitor, transistor, diode, IC, resistors, etc.;

(4) Residue on the PCB circuit board:

Moisture, dust and other residue on the surface of printed circuit board are conductive with a resistance effect, this resistance value will also change in the process of thermal expansion and contraction, the resistance value will have parallel effect in conjunction with the other components, the circuit parameters will be changed once the effect become stronger and caused failure occurs.