Fron FB group pictures of electronic…
Joshua E. Hrouda
Yeah, where I worked, the PCBs were reworked and the bad chips replaced. But that was 1980.
Nowadays the PCBs are populated at the same factory where the boards are made, because everything is automated and almost no labor makes them cheap. The boards may have a controller that self-tests and if it doesn’t pass, someone may look for solder bridges and if removing those doesn’t solve the problem the board is rejected and never gets to the purchaser.
PC Boards used to be large, complex and a bad chip might be replaced. Now with SOC – system on a chip, the board is small and cheap and there’s only one or a few chips. Labor adds too much to the cost to make it worth repairing.
