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Comment by eek2121 | Hacker News Reader

This is not true.

I laugh when people claim chips are desoldered by anyone at all, even Russia.

Anyone with a minimal amount of knowledge knows that it would cost tons of time and money (and be impossible for anyone not well educated/experienced in the craft) to:

1) design a new circuit board around the chip 2) print said circuit board in sufficient quantities 3) Write software (from scratch) for the chip

ASML is most certainly not involved, regardless.

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I personally know people in low volume industries where they have pulled parts from prototypes, rejects and devkits to keep production moving. It absolutely gets done when it makes sense. For example with FPGA's.

I promise you that there are plenty of reasons to get a chip professionally desoldered.

Your steps 1 thru 3 could cost $100k or more, depending on the chip.

If you're selling 1,000 to 10,000 units of something in the short term, you'd definitely pay the premium for a removal and repackaging

You desolder to avoid 1, 2, and 3. That's why it makes sense. Washing machine has the stupid microcontroller you need and costs half of scalper prices? Washing machine it is.

Obviously the economics only work in low volume / high NRE sectors -- like semiconductor tooling.

steps 4+) get new electronics through FCC, UL, CE, etc. certification, which is slow and expensive, strongly motivating keeping the components the same

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