What are the hard core and cow dung core of Fluke multimeter, and what is the difference?

Friends who often come into contact with multimeters should have heard that Fluke multimeters have hard cores and cow dung cores. So what are the hard cores and cow dung cores of Fluke multimeters, and what are the differences?

Many customers ask whether the Fluke meter driver chip is a hard core or a cow dung chip, saying that the cow dung chip is easy to burn. This statement is incorrect. Before 2010, the US manufacturing was basically an integrated block.

Many customers ask whether hard core or cow dung core is better. Is cow dung core easier to burn? Actually, there is no such saying. Before 2010, American manufacturing was basically integrated, and then Chinese manufacturing was basically bound (commonly known as cow dung).

Because this is a cost factor. Analyze the difference between hard core and cow dung core:

A chip> integrated package> becomes integrated block> SMT patch on PCB grid.

A chip is bound to the PCB board and the epoxy resin is cured (commonly known as a cow dung pile).

In fact, these are just two different packaging methods. The chip is still the same chip, and the chips that are destined to break will still break, and its performance will not improve due to the change of packaging method.

It’s just that the cost of hard core is higher. It occupies a large area of ​​the motherboard and has a low processing pass rate. However, the cost of cow dung chip is low, it occupies a small space on the motherboard, it is bound by welding, and the manufacturing speed is fast and the cost is low.

If a chip like a cow dung chip is broken, can it be repaired? The answer is yes. Just carefully remove the chip and epoxy resin, find a chip of the same model instrument to solder on, check the solder joints (false solder joints, short circuits), and then calibrate it. The premise is that your soldering skills must be good. Here I would like to remind you that the replacement chip must be purchased from a disassembled machine, and do not use a new chip, because the new chip has no driver, and it is useless even if it is soldered on.