Top all-time · #5920
electronupdate
Personal blog · electronupdate.blogspot.comhardwarescience
electronupdate is a personal blog at electronupdate.blogspot.com about hardware and science. Since 2016, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 20 times, most often “Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W die shots”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-04-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for hardware teardowns and chip internals, such as a Leviton timer failure from a heat-damaged capacitor, the Humane AI Pin mute switch, and ESP32 die structure. Comments cite the posts as sources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Teardown and analysis of electronics. Integrated circuit design analysis.
Most-linked posts?
- Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W die shots3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-08
- Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-01-12
What Hacker News says?
My first impression is that the RPi foundation has finally jumped the shark. There is a vast, vast number of microcontrollers available in every possible configuration. How can this chip possibly differentiate? How is custom silicon necessary to make a microcontroller dev board? How does this support their educational mission? I'm starting to come around. The chip is interesting: it's as if they were listening to my…
Comment linking /2018/08/espressif-esp32-teardown.html
on “Raspberry Pi Pico and RP2040 Microcontroller”Submitted Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional as a story · 439 points
HN discussionThere was a Leviton (well known brand) timer power switch that would prematurely fail. They spec’d out too low temperature rating of a capacitor that was right next to a heat source and cook itself to death: https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=315&v=BQM4ERy-wpY https://electronupdate.blogspot.com/2017/12/leviton-ltb30-bu... So yeah, tried too hard to save 2 cents
Comment linking /2017/12/leviton-ltb30-buzzing-timer-failure.html?m=1
on “Gooey rubber that's slowly ruining old hard drives”Submitted Teardown of a $1.25 LED Lightbulb as a story · 324 points
HN discussionThe reason could be the same as given in the other RPi post today (about the Pi Zero 2W): > The black rectangle is a "bare-die soldered bumped package"... what that means is the silicon die has no black epoxy covering. A metal layer is deposited on the die and then solder bumps attached which allow the part to be soldered to a PCB. The reason for this, is as expected, cost. No package (epoxy, substrate)... no cost.…
Comment linking /2021/11/raspberry-pi-zero-2w-what-does-silicon.html
on “Photographing a Raspberry Pi 2 with Xenon flash makes it power down (2015)”Submitted Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W die shots as a story · 190 points
HN discussionIs this done physically/electrically? Echo devices, for example, were sold as having a "hardware mute switch" from day one. Sure enough, teardown after teardown[0] has confirmed the hardware mute switch actually physically disables the mic (cuts power to the ADC, mic lines, etc). If this is implemented in software it's no different than a phone and worse than an Echo. [0] - https://electronupdate.blogspot.com/2021/0…
Comment linking /2021/01/amazon-echo-flex-microphone-mute-real.html
on “Humane launches $699 Ai Pin”Submitted Pi Pico 2 Extreme Teardown as a story · 178 points
HN discussionWhy would you need to sign an NDA? There are decaps readily available. The ESP32 a separate die for the flash memory, but everything but the flash is on a single die, which sounds like a SoC to me (The definition of SoC devices have always included devices with off-die RAM and Flash). These aren't "a bunch of components on printed circuit boards" as you initially claimed. https://electronupdate.blogspot.com/2018/08/…
Comment linking /2018/08/espressif-esp32-teardown.html
on “Building an occupancy sensor with a $5 ESP32 and a serverless DB”Submitted Amazon Echo Flex Teardown: The Big Silicon as a story · 119 points
HN discussionSubmitted Optical Mouse Teardown: a look at the sensor as a story · 102 points
HN discussionSubmitted Decap of a cell phone SIM card as a story · 38 points
HN discussionSubmitted Raspberry Pi Pico W Silicon Level Teardown as a story · 35 points
HN discussionSubmitted Raspberry Pi Zero 2W: What does the silicon contain? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted RFID tags inside Amazon products as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Silicon level Amazon Echo Flex teardown as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Microsoft “Intellimouse” Teardown as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted ESP32-P4 Teardown as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reverse Engineering the Apple AirTag 2 with Die Shots as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Silicon Die inside a Scientific Calculator as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
