Says someone who has clearly never tried to replace one of these chips.Come ooon it's not even a BGA package what's hard about it?!We have an extremely experienced technician and some very expensive equipment, and he still thinks replacing the PMIC is a very difficult and PITA job. So good luck!
Like a lot of electronic makers I can do it alone, and you can remove a zero to your estimation cost of equipment needed !
With all my respect to your technician, this sounds like a skill issue to me
And about the equipment, all you really need is a hot air station, a pair of tweezers, some flux, a solder wick and a bit of solder paste (preferably leaded), or the more "expensive" way will be to use a soldering iron and solder wire.
And yes you can of course get to this budget if you want top-of-the-lane JBC stations and whatnot, but it's very much doable with setup for less than 300$
Stop speaking BS that scares people from trying to save devices from landfills...
Instead, you can make the chip available to the public.
Because if it's that so hard to do nobody will do it and you ain't gonna lose money on selling new devices
You are correct, it's not even a BGA. It's SMT - MUCH harder to replace as SMT is degined for completely automated manufacture. It needs to be positioned within about 0.1mm and there is a large ground in the centre of the device that needs to properly soldered up.
You can get a DA9090 (not sure about DA9091, I will ask sales) from a number of places, so feel free to buy one and try and replace it yourself. I'd be interested in the results. If you get good at it I am sure there is a business there replacing them. Since there isn't already a business there replacing them, I suspect it's a little bit more difficult than you suggest.
As for selling these devices, we have made the DA9090 available in reels to resellers who can then sell them off in whatever quantities they want. It's not cost-effective for us to sell single devices directly, it's not something we are geared up for. I did wonder whether to buy a reel myself and sell them off on eBay, but the difficulty in replacing the devices successfully makes that fraught with danger ("Your chip didn't work, give me my money back")
Statistics: Posted by jamesh — Mon Mar 24, 2025 9:16 am