Re: Are chips ... electronics runs on magic smoke??

On Sun, 6/21/2026 7:34 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
> On 6/21/2026 6:34 PM, Paul wrote:
>>
>> There was one report on USENET, of an ATX supply, where a live
>> flame shot out of the fan hole on the back of the ATX supply
>> (the supply was running of course and the fan spinning). If
>> the computer had been near curtains on that particular day, it
>> could have lit the curtains on fire. For the most part, other
>> ATX supplies do not fail exactly that way, so that one is an
>> "anomaly".
> 
> Those are real, non-magical smoke, NOT "magic smnoke", as mentioned by "Jeroen Belleman"! :)
> 

If you've seen the smoke from failed chip(s), it's not exactly
like other smoke. If two bus drivers (from the days of jelly bean chips)
are accidentally enabled at the same time, enough power is dissipated to crack at
least one of the two packages open, the die inside is piping-hot,
and a thin stream of black smoke emerges.

And that counts as the magic smoke. Once the smoke escapes, the
life cycle is complete. Into the waste bin they go :-)

And it is magic smoke, because the visual appearance of
the smoke, is different than how other materials smoke and burn.

   Paul