I don't know about grinding, but the guy at MIT
who figured out the Xbox
innards did something of the sort (regardless, it's a great read):
A guy I went to school with does this for Motorola. He gets chips back
that are failing in the field and dissects them to find out what went
wrong.
I think the actual process involves shaving rather than grinding.
William Donzelli
aw288 at
osfn.org