Comment by ElectricalUnion 3 days ago
The engineering time to "salvage" and test the 15$ chip, and the cost of downtime reintegrating the part to the production line is probably worth more that 15$, so unless the lack of that specific part is a bottleneck, probably no?
I think you're right that for high end chips, it is worth the time to salvage it[1]. But I think that's the vast minority, like you said, most stuff being manufactured isn't at the cutting edge of consumer tech like GPUs are.
[1] They show a bit of the RMA/failed unit process towards the end of this surprisingly good GPU factory tour from Linus Tech Tips. There's some discussion of de-soldering and testing retrieved components. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS35VHEfFDU
Yeah, probably, but I do wonder where it starts to make sense to desolder a chip and give it another try.
Surely at the point of high end GPU Boards one would invest considerable amounts of time and money to salvage a chip, which could sell for thousands of dollars.