[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by andy

You'd be surprised that there is a fair amount of standardization among ICs. If you crack open a dozen cheap DVD players (that were actually made by different companies), you'll probably only find 3 or 4 different DVD decoder ICs. A lot of DVD players use IDE DVD-ROM drives which can be replaced with a standard computer drive.

Large ICs are the price we pay for things like DVD and HDTV. If you built them out of 1980's technology a DVD player would be the size of a dishwasher. I was reminded of this today when I worked on a 1986 Panasonic H-Fi VCR (you can get one for $45 today, but they were $1000 back then). They actually had to make the chassis larger than their regular VCRs to hold all the extra electronics needed for the stereo audio. The board that does the Hi-Fi audio is as big as the entire main board for a VCR just 6 years newer. That newer VCR's Hi-Fi board is the size of a credit card.

Fortunately, those huge custom ICs rarely fail. In fact, today's big ICs are far more reliable than the ICs from a few decades ago. That's amazing when you consider that they are 1000 times more complex now.

Sockets seem like a good idea, but the sockets are almost always less reliable than the ICs in them. Reliable IC sockets are expensive and rarely get used in consumer electronics.

I can't remember the last time I junked something because it needed a big IC. Big ICs get blamed a lot, but it's almost always something simple like a bad cap, or bad soldering.

I hate cheap junk as much as anyone, but that's what happens as technology matures. I'm sure people said the same thing about 1960's AM radios compared to 1930's ones. Fortunately, we have a choice. We can choose to own items that were made when they were still high-tech and people took pride in them.

As far as sockets go, i was thinking more along the lines of the locking ZIF sockets used for computer processors. It may be pointless for something like a $20 walmart DVD player, but not for a $2400 1080P Sony LCD panel