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We had the same problem as you - to remove in big quantities (>10K per month) the labels of the chips and to place new labels. The best process that proved to work well is to get water sand paper 400, put the sand paper into shallow pot and manually grind the label. It takes approximately 15-30 s to remove one label if the sand papaer is new. It's important to apply even force on all sides otherwise the chip top surface will be not horizontal.
We found later that there are existing some water sand paper grinders - a horizontal pot with rotating disk of sand paper and a small pipe that pours water on the surface. With such tool the removing becomes much easier. Also a holder for the chip made from some thermoreactive plastic helps to position and hold the chip easier.
For labeling we used laser. You can use also pad printing but its more messy.
My suggestion. Take a Veroboard with maximum size available and solder the Round Pin bases adjacent to each other as much as is possible for the board size. Now fix the ICs in all the bases and with the Water Sand Paper kept on a GLASS sheet (to keep even surface for grinding). You can rub off many ICs just in one pass. Just a suggestion, modifications can be made accordingly.
I really don't understand the point of removing IC markings. The kind of people who do this, are usually people who
Don't have a clue about how good a determined person or group can be in figuring out what parts are used. Blank IC's won't change (and hardly delay) the outcome of a serious reverse-engineering attempt.
For a mass-produced, commodity item no-one will care. Competition is already making the same & don't need your help anyway.
Or you've taken somebody else's design without permission (possibly illegal depending on where you are & where products are sold), and don't want the rest of the world to find out.
The only result is making it hard for people to repair your product, when that is needed. For me personally: if manufacturer scrapes IC labels off, I would take that as a clear indicator that manufacturer is 'ashamed' of its work or has done something shady, and steer clear of that product.
Agreed with you RetroTechie, but this action is taken as hard to copy the design for others, as I know some paces where copying and getting copied the designs is normal and people try to save their skins. But as you said it is BIT HARD for reverse engineering but not a stop to reverse engineering.
I really don't understand the point of removing IC markings. The kind of people who do this, are usually people who
Don't have a clue about how good a determined person or group can be in figuring out what parts are used. Blank IC's won't change (and hardly delay) the outcome of a serious reverse-engineering attempt.
For a mass-produced, commodity item no-one will care. Competition is already making the same & don't need your help anyway.
Or you've taken somebody else's design without permission (possibly illegal depending on where you are & where products are sold), and don't want the rest of the world to find out.
The only result is making it hard for people to repair your product, when that is needed. For me personally: if manufacturer scrapes IC labels off, I would take that as a clear indicator that manufacturer is 'ashamed' of its work or has done something shady, and steer clear of that product.
I morally agree with your opinion. Many Asian industries do it. they feel that with names on chips their design is insecure. but they forget that it takes only an hour to know what all chips they used. Perhaps this social issue, though unhealthy, cant be stopped .
mvs sarma, I was working in Saudi Arabia in 1979 and being the Biomedical Engineer was linked with the hospital equipment. It was a big hospital (500 beds) owned by the Government of Saudi Arabia (that time it was under the control of ARAMCO _ Arabian American Oil Company). In the Radiology department a Silver Collecting device was connected with X-Ray film Developers. I had to fix it once when gone bad. There was just one Board with many ICs and you know THERE WAS NO ID NUMBERS ON THE CHIPS. All were rubbed out. And it was American made (do not remember the manufacturer name after 32 years). Do not mean to point here any thing but just the thinking of the DESIGNERS.
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