Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

19 Nov 2001

Not quite true.

The Dram problem was one of those "we knew it was comming" due
to shrinking geometry items.  The source of the radiation was the Gold
eutectic braze.  The specific radiation was alpha particles.  FYI the
solution was organic based die overcoat.  Testing for the phenomina was
undertaken to verify and analyze the phenomina by NEC,IBM and MOTO
(to name a few) using initally small  geometry 16k single voltage (i2118
style) parts.

FYI: the coors ceramic parts were morecostly due to the gold!  They
however were better for hermetic performance than slab with glass frit
sealed packages.

Allison

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher &lt;edick(a)idcomm.com&gt;
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt;
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY

...
 Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics
were described as having
...
 too much radioactivity for use in high-density
memories.  I'm not sure that was,
...
 in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought
so.  Do you suppose they
...
 fixed that?  Coors was a leader, in the '60's
in porcelain tooling and other
...
 such oddities, not to mention having
"perfected" the draw-and-iron process for
...
 making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Quebbeman" &lt;dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com&gt;
To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt;
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 7:37 AM
Subject: RE: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY

  > It's very late run ceramic.  Ceramic for
chip substrates only comes from a
> > few vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far east
and
...
    Europe. 
 heh... actually, Adolph Coors spun-off its non-brewery assets in 1992
 into ACX Technologies, and most recently, CoorsTek (formerly Coors
 Ceramics) was spun-off into a wholly separate company on Jan 1, 2000.

 -dq