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by mikebco 1764 days ago
Have you performed any teardowns and analysis of any similar but newer chips? If so, how does architecture and manufacture compare? Have there been any significant changes in state-of-the-art over the last two decades?
1 comments

I've looked at more modern power supplies like a Macbook charger [1]. One difference is they have power factor correction in the frontend. Another difference is they use more advanced power supply topologies, such as a resonant converter. Also, efficiency is a bigger concern.

As far as the chips themselves, I haven't looked at a modern power supply controller chip, but I've looked at other power chips [2]. The biggest difference is they are CMOS instead of bipolar. They are also much more complex and dense, so I can't reverse engineer them with my microscope.

[1] https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surp...

[2] https://www.righto.com/2020/05/tiny-transformer-inside-decap...

> They are also much more complex and dense, so I can't reverse engineer them with my microscope.

What would be the path forward if you chose to try an do that? A different light frequency microscope? Or something way more complex and expensive?

(Or would having the imaging capability not matter because the complexity is too high even if you could see it properly?)