Is it possible to reverse engineer capacitators, transistors

S

Skybuck Flying

Guest
Hi,

As many of you in this newsgroup have told me, it's possible to reverse
engineer integrated circuits etc.

I do have another probably last question about reverse enginering hardware:

Is it possible to reverse engineer the little components, like capacitators,
transistors, resistors, and those kind of things ?

I once read a story about a "stolen" capacitor formula to produce them but
the manufacturer didn't understand the formula completely or the formula
contain flaws etc.

I think I saw a little part of the formula and it looked quite complex to me
lol.

I don't know exactly what a capacitator is or how it works... but maybe it's
more of a chemical thing ?

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
"Skybuck Flying" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dcs2ub$s14$1@news3.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
Hi,

As many of you in this newsgroup have told me, it's possible to reverse
engineer integrated circuits etc.

I do have another probably last question about reverse enginering
hardware:

Is it possible to reverse engineer the little components, like
capacitators,
transistors, resistors, and those kind of things ?

I once read a story about a "stolen" capacitor formula to produce them but
the manufacturer didn't understand the formula completely or the formula
contain flaws etc.

I think I saw a little part of the formula and it looked quite complex to
me
lol.

I don't know exactly what a capacitator is or how it works... but maybe
it's
more of a chemical thing ?
done all the time.
Cap has electrolytic usually, and companies get a chemical analysis done on
them
 
On Thu, 4 Aug 2005 05:46:00 +0200, "Skybuck Flying"
<nospam@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

As many of you in this newsgroup have told me, it's possible to reverse
engineer integrated circuits etc.

I do have another probably last question about reverse enginering hardware:

Is it possible to reverse engineer the little components, like capacitators,
transistors, resistors, and those kind of things ?
I suppose, but such components have been around so long that most
of the designs are in the public domain.

I once read a story about a "stolen" capacitor formula to produce them but
the manufacturer didn't understand the formula completely or the formula
contain flaws etc.
Was that the manufacturer that sold inexpensive capacitors to
computer motherboard makers, and the capacitors deteriorated within
the first year or two? Maybe this was a different story, I didn't hear
that the capacitor (or electrolyte) formula was stolen from another
manufacturer, only that it was substandard.

I think I saw a little part of the formula and it looked quite complex to me
lol.

I don't know exactly what a capacitator is or how it works... but maybe it's
more of a chemical thing ?
Get any year/edition of the ARRL's Amateur Radio Handbook and read
the first 100 or so pages, it covers capacitors and several other
electronic components. You can search for and order it through this
site:

http://www.bookfinder.com

Bye,
Skybuck.
-----
http://www.mindspring.com/~benbradley
 
"Skybuck Flying" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dcs2ub$s14$1@news3.zwoll1.ov.home.nl...
I once read a story about a "stolen" capacitor formula to produce them but
the manufacturer didn't understand the formula completely or the formula
contain flaws etc.
You're probably thinking of this:
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/gee20030207018535.htm -- it was a
very real problem!

I don't know exactly what a capacitator is or how it works... but maybe it's
more of a chemical thing ?
A capacitor is just a pair of conductors that's being used to store a charge
by virtue of a voltage (potential difference) being impressed across the
conductors. Everything has capacitance, since being able to change the
voltage across conductors implies that charges have to move around, hence
there's always some "stored charge" whenever a difference in voltage exists
between two conductors. (BTW, it's sometimes useful to assume the "second
conductor" is off at infinity; mathematically this works just fine, and leads
to typical undergraduate electromagnetics class questions such as, "What's the
capacitance of the Earth?" Answer: Not very bloody much -- infinity is a long
ways away!)

How well capacitors can store charge is related to things like the area of the
conductors, their geometric orientation... and the material between them. Air
is about as good as a vacuum at allowing charge build-up between capacitors;
other materials can easily be 100 or 1000 times better than this; trying to
build such a dielectric while making it last a long time, not change too much
over temperature, age, etc. leads to some complex chemical formulations.

---Joel Kolstad
 
Skybuck Flying wrote:

Is it possible to reverse engineer the little components, like capacitators,
transistors, resistors, and those kind of things ?

I went and looked. alt.religion.kibology is still an active newsgroup.
 

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