Inside a VL53L0X

I killed one of my VL53L0X sensor modules, so instead of just throwing it away, let's do a teardown and take a look inside for your enjoyment.

Here's the chip with the start of the receiver side removed, you can see an IR filter in there on the left:

Taking more away you notice the left side is fully encapsulated to prevent light leakage from the transmitter (this is the collector side; left) and you start to see the die and the other IR filter on the transmitter side (right):

Here are the IR filters:

Removing both IR filters, you see the laser diode on the right and the rest of the die with the detection array on the left:

And here's the chip removed from the board with all the casing removed:

It looks like there is a secondary detection array near the diode for further timing analysis for ToF.

Very interesting little chip.

Discussions

nicoud jean-daniel wrote 06/23/2018 at 09:24

Very good work. It is always interesting to see how things are built.

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Blecky wrote 06/23/2018 at 09:56

There's also a teardown of the VL53L1X sensor here too :) - https://hackaday.io/project/25571-mappydot/log/148243-vl53l1x-teardown

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Lee Maisel wrote 07/18/2017 at 17:22

HOW did you remove the black gunk?

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Blecky wrote 07/20/2017 at 01:50

Just with a sharp scalpel. The casing is plastic.

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deʃhipu wrote 07/18/2017 at 14:11

Chip porn++

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Thomas wrote 07/19/2017 at 17:53

Unfortunately Rule 34 applies. Do you have an URL?

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davedarko wrote 07/18/2017 at 10:35

oh wow, thank you for sharing that!

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Blecky wrote 07/18/2017 at 10:48

My loss is everyone's gain :)
I just wish I had a better camera for the microscope and a higher magnification (this is 15x).

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