[ChrisMarshallNY]

What bothers me, is the prevalence of counterfeit and just plain bad-quality, cheap chips.

These become so low-cost that corporate buyers pretty much have no choice, but to use them.

The result, is things like expensive Bluetooth headsets, crapping out, after a year. I have been through quite a few.

I/O ports see a lot of use (even virtual ones). Those are some of the hardest-working chips in a device. Not a good place for cheap dross; but they are also present in almost every device out there. Lots of money to be made.

To give Apple credit, I think they are fairly serious about keeping the quality of their internals up to snuff.

> cursed looking trampolines

I like that.

BTW: I do think this is an awesome write-up, and things like it, are why I like this place.

[hyperdimension]

> Those are some of the hardest-working chips in a device.

(Mis)quoting Randy Fromm, "the things that work the hardest fail the most."

I've always liked that quote, even though at the time he was referring to CRTs and the color output transistors (well, mostly). It generalizes to most anything electronic.