4 ms·

As long as it stays sealed inside a LGA (etc.) package, I can't see it causing any problems.

• kardos 10y ago
  Oh, you mean like keeping the lead in sealed lead acid batteries? Or the mercury in fluorescent tubes? Or the radioactive elements in the nuclear reactor? I'm not so confident that we're all that good at containment. If they are indeed dangerous, having them widely distributed makes them readily available for someone to break them open and poison someone. Perhaps they can be designed to self-destruct by rusting/oxidising/etc and become less harmful upon package breach.
  • adwn 10y ago
    > Oh, you mean like keeping the lead in sealed lead acid batteries? Or the mercury in fluorescent tubes? Or the radioactive elements in the nuclear reactor? Misleading analogy. Chip packages are very different from batteries, fluorescent tubes, and nuclear reactors. The only trait those have in common is "contains hazardous materials", so they cannot be used to predict the behavior of chip packages.
    • kardos 10y ago
      I agree that chip packages are as different from batteries/tubes/reactors as those three things are from each other, but that's pretty much the point. ICs are not immune to catastrophic failure either [1,2]. The analogy, "these things are well contained under normal conditions but not under abnormal conditions", stands. [1] See first photo here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_componen... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cKdh0UygVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cKdh0UygVQ