Unidentified chip -- Spoiler for HP 1260-0339

[Jon Elson]

On 08/06/2015 02:25 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
>> It could also be a chip used to test an auto-insertion machine or wave
>> solder machine.  If memory serves, they'll use correctly pinned but "fake"
>> parts to test those processes before moving to the more expensive real
>> thing.
> Yes, there were a few companies that made dummy chips for exactly that
> reason. These days, the robots are much better, so I doubt the
> practice of using dummy chips still exists.
>
>
They definitely still exist.  I doubt many people use them 
for P&P testing, except maybe the people who MAKE the P&P 
machines.  But, larger outfits do extensive thermal 
profiles, cross-section microscopic examinations of solder 
joints and all sorts of exhaustive tests on soldering and 
other parts of the process.  They use the dummy chips for 
testing the quality of these processes.  They may run 25 
boards with different thermal profiles to find out what 
gives the best soldering results.

Jon