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 Intel Pentium CPU with gold plated lid |
Thinking about selling your
CPU & Computer chips for their scrap Gold Value?
Check for their collectible value first!
At Chips Etc. we often get inquires into what is the value of gold found in vintage computer chips and other electronic items.
Our first bit of advice is to always check into the rarity and collect-ability of your computer chip before considering sending it to a precious metal refiner with the intent of reclaiming the gold content. It may possibly be worth quite a bit more due to it's collectible value than in it's scrap gold value!
Unfortunately, their is very little profit from extracting the gold content found in most computer chips and electronic components yourself unless you have significant quantities of them to be processed. Reclaiming Gold & other precious metals (including silver, palladium & platinum) from CPU's & electronics is typically not profitable unless it's done professionally and in large quantities; when processing just a few items the cost is often higher than the value of the gold that is reclaimed. More importantly, the process of reclaiming gold involves working closely with hazardous materials including nitric and hydrochloric acids, as well as Mercury, and should only be performed safely by experienced Gold refiners.
Electronic scrap items (CPU's, transistors, RAM memory sticks, motherboards & other Printed Circuit Boards, fingers, connectors, pins, etc.) can be sent to a professional precious metal refiner who will extract the gold & precious metals from your items safely and efficiently. In return, the customer will typically get paid between 40 to 60% of the final gold content value after refining. Some precious metal refiners may have a minimum weight requirement when sending scrap material to them; depending on the component type some recyclers may require you sending them 2lbs or more to work with.
A Bell Labs CCD scanner chip with gold plated package & pins, typical of integrated circuits of the 1970's
Various ceramic computer chips from the 1980's that have Gold pins and lids
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How much Gold do CPU's & Computer Chips have in them?
Intel Pentium Pro chips with gold wire bonding
Older computer chips, transistors & electronics components from the 1960's & 70's contain the most gold content in general as they were often designed for military and aerospace applications which required them to have heavier gold-plated caps (lids) and leads/pins/connectors which offered the component increased longevity, heat, radiation and corrosion resistance.
During the 1990's some early versions of the Intel Pentium Processor, Intel Pentium Pro Processor, and many DEC Alpha (and similar RISC CPU's) had large gold-plated caps, connector pins, and internally had solid gold wiring making them good candidates for gold refining.
Up to around 1998, very fine solid gold wiring was used in wire bonding the computer chip (die) to the substrate packaging. Gold wire used in Integrated circuit packaging were typically 99.9% pure gold. All other components (caps, lids, pins & pads) were only gold-plated. Some manufactures have also used aluminum or copper wiring in the past in place of solid gold wiring to cut material costs.
The Intel Pentium Pro Processor has one of the highest gold contents of any mainstream CPU package from the 1990's to date due to it's much larger package size contributing to a an increased number of gold plated pins and much larger gold plated cap. The Pentium Pro also had two separate chips inside so this doubled the amount of solid gold wire bonding that is usually found in a single chip CPU. Gold refining yields of the Pentium Pro have been reported to be as high as around one gram per CPU.
During the 1990's some early versions of the Intel Pentium Processor, Intel Pentium Pro Processor, and many DEC Alpha (and similar RISC CPU's) had large gold-plated caps, connector pins, and internally had solid gold wiring making them good candidates for gold refining.
Up to around 1998, very fine solid gold wiring was used in wire bonding the computer chip (die) to the substrate packaging. Gold wire used in Integrated circuit packaging were typically 99.9% pure gold. All other components (caps, lids, pins & pads) were only gold-plated. Some manufactures have also used aluminum or copper wiring in the past in place of solid gold wiring to cut material costs.
The Intel Pentium Pro Processor has one of the highest gold contents of any mainstream CPU package from the 1990's to date due to it's much larger package size contributing to a an increased number of gold plated pins and much larger gold plated cap. The Pentium Pro also had two separate chips inside so this doubled the amount of solid gold wire bonding that is usually found in a single chip CPU. Gold refining yields of the Pentium Pro have been reported to be as high as around one gram per CPU.
Gold Yielding Ceramic CPU's
Intel Pentium Pro Processor
- Intel 186 / 286 / 386 / 486 / Pentium / Pentium Pro / i860 / i960
- Cyrix 486 / 586 / MII
- IBM 486 / 586 / 686
- Motorola 68000 / 88000 series
- NEC & Toshiba MIPS series: R4000 / R8000 / R10000 / R12000
- AMD 286 / 386 / 486 / K5 / 29000 series
- IDT Winchip C6 / 2A
- DEC Alpha
- HP PA-7000 & PA-8000 RISC series
- SUN SPARC / UltraSPARC / SuperSPARC RISC series
Modern CPU's have a much lower Gold content
Gold plated CPU pins
Modern
computer chips manufactured after 1998 have very little gold
content in them because most CPU's no longer use solid gold wire bonding technology
or
gold-plated lids in their packaging.
For example, the Intel Pentium 4 Microprocessor came in an organic (non ceramic) package with a nickle-plated copper lid, & it did not use gold wire internally to attach the silicon chip to it's package. It's only noticeable gold content came from it's connector pins that were thinly gold-plated. However, the pins were gold-plated to a thickness of only 0.76 microns - that calculates to just around a few cents worth of gold value per CPU.
Today, a typical organic CPU package no longer is made with connector pins, instead they use thinly gold-plated connection pads which is used to socket the CPU to a motherboard.
For example, the Intel Pentium 4 Microprocessor came in an organic (non ceramic) package with a nickle-plated copper lid, & it did not use gold wire internally to attach the silicon chip to it's package. It's only noticeable gold content came from it's connector pins that were thinly gold-plated. However, the pins were gold-plated to a thickness of only 0.76 microns - that calculates to just around a few cents worth of gold value per CPU.
Today, a typical organic CPU package no longer is made with connector pins, instead they use thinly gold-plated connection pads which is used to socket the CPU to a motherboard.
Some Computer chips are worth more than their weight in Gold...
Collectors are always looking for rare, vintage computer chips
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 A Toshiba Engineering Sample CPU with gold pins, lids & wires
The good news is that many older computer chips can be worth more than their weight in gold due to hungry vintage computer chip & CPU collectors.
Most popular with chip collectors are the early Intel microprocessor chips such as the first microprocessor - the Intel 4004, and it's successors - the Intel 8008 & 8080, as well as early Intel Memory chips such as the first RAM - the Intel 3101, ROM - the Intel 3301, & EPROM - the Intel 1702. The Intel 4004 microprocessor, especially the white ceramic version - the Intel C4004, continues to be the most sought after computer chip by collectors today. Other popular chips that collectors are seeking are the Motorola 6800 & 68000 vintage CPU's, Mostek 6502 CPU, AMD 9140 RAM chips & other early AMD chips such as the AM2501 logic counter (AMD's first product) and their 8080, 8086 & 8088 CPU's, as well as any early 1960's and 70's integrated circuits and hybrid circuits that are in white ceramic packaging with gold leads & lids. Even among modern CPU chips their are still ones worth saving from selling to the gold recyclers. Especially popular by CPU collectors are any chips, old or new, marked with "ES", "Engineering Sample", or "Mechanical Sample" on them. These chips were preliminary versions of the chip, they were given to vendors by the manufacturer to test out future designs before being offered to the general public. However, chips marked "Confidential" or "Internal" were never intended to be used externally by vendors or the general public and should not have been available to anyone outside the original manufacturer, these chips should be avoided by sellers and collectors and if found they should be returned to the original manufacturer. As rare and valuable as these chips may be to collectors, their are legality issues to owning and selling these chips on the open market. They will always be property of the original manufacturer. |
Gold Value of Computer Chips found on Motherboards & PCB Circuit Boards
Some Vintage Circuit cards are sought after by collectors as well...
HP circuit board with heavy gold plating
Depending on their age, computer motherboards and other electronic circuit boards can also contain rich gold content made up of gold-plated circuit traces, edge fingers, connectors, Integrated Circuits, transistors, & memory chips. Before sending your computer motherboards and gold-laden PCB cards to the precious metal recycler you should make sure to check for their collectible value first. Some of these boards are highly sought after by vintage computer collectors & hobbyists.
Military, aerospace, electronic circuit testers and telecommunications boards, especially ones from the 1960's thru the 80's, often have generous gold-plating of their traces, fingers, connectors & electronic components than the modern circuit boards found in today's electronic devices.
However, before any circuit boards are sent off to a refiner for gold scrap they should first be examined to see if they have any chips that may be of interest to vintage computer chip collectors.
This heavily gold plated circuit card from a 1980's HP digital electronic circuit analyzer contains a nice HP ceramic DIP chip with gold plated ground strap & pins, well worth checking out first for its possible value before the circuit board is sent off to be scrapped for it's gold content. If it is wanted by computer chip collectors then it may be worth the time to carefully de-solder the chip from it's circuit board.
Military, aerospace, electronic circuit testers and telecommunications boards, especially ones from the 1960's thru the 80's, often have generous gold-plating of their traces, fingers, connectors & electronic components than the modern circuit boards found in today's electronic devices.
However, before any circuit boards are sent off to a refiner for gold scrap they should first be examined to see if they have any chips that may be of interest to vintage computer chip collectors.
This heavily gold plated circuit card from a 1980's HP digital electronic circuit analyzer contains a nice HP ceramic DIP chip with gold plated ground strap & pins, well worth checking out first for its possible value before the circuit board is sent off to be scrapped for it's gold content. If it is wanted by computer chip collectors then it may be worth the time to carefully de-solder the chip from it's circuit board.
Intel computer board with gold fingers & Integrated Circuits
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An Intel 8080 CPU based "SBC 80" single board computer from 1976. Though it has alot of gold plated IC's and connectors, it is actually worth more to vintage computer hobbyists & collectors than if it were scrapped for it's heavy gold content. |
How do you know if a computer chip has any value to collectors?
The best way to determine a computer chip's value is to search Ebay for similar computer chips offered for sale. Make sure to check Ebay's completed items as well as currently listed items to see if they are in demand by collectors or hobbyists. You might be surprised on what they are current;y worth.
Chips Etc. also offers information on researching vintage computer chips which can help in determining the age & manufacturer of your computer chips and Integrated Circuits.
Chips Etc. also offers information on researching vintage computer chips which can help in determining the age & manufacturer of your computer chips and Integrated Circuits.
AMD Amdahl Analog Devices Apple Atari AT&T Bell Labs Burroughs
Control Data Cray Cyrix Data General DEC ESI Fujitsu HP Hughes
IBM Intel ITT LSI Memorex Micron MIT Microvision Motorola National Semi
NCR NEC Nvidia Panasonic PHILCO PMI RCA Remington Rand Samsung
Signetics Sperry Sun Microsystems TSMC UNIVAC Western Electric Etc.
