Signal source
Teardown and chip identification signals.
A teardown is someone opening a product and recording what is on the boards. A chip identification lists the devices by marking. It is the most direct public evidence of what is inside a shipping product.
It was also the most productive source in testing, once the searches were aimed at the right kind of page.
Search for the opened product, not for the part.
A search for a part number returns distributors, datasheet mirrors and evaluation boards. A search restricted to repair sites, hardware news archives and maker platforms returns products with the device named in the text.
Consumer wearables and headsets with the exact programmable device identified, industrial modules and frame grabbers with the device named in the article, and sensor bridges with the family in the headline.
Each result is checked for one thing: does the page name a specific product and the device inside it. Evaluation boards and development kits are marked as such and kept apart from shipping products.
Public teardowns favour consumer products.
Phones, headsets and wearables are opened within days of release. An industrial camera or a servo drive usually never is. For three of the five industrial products in the test, no teardown or chip identification was found.
- A teardown shows one unit of one revision.
- The same teardown is republished and translated; it counts once.
- A module vendor's product naming its device is evidence about the module, and through it about every product that uses the module.
Where teardowns help most.
- Products sold in volume to consumers or prosumers
- Modules and boards whose makers name the device
- Seeding a product list with the incumbent already known
How signals are detected · FCC filing signals · Datasheet signals · Job posting signals
Ask which products in your class have been opened