I have in my posession a Foxconn G45A01 out of a Dell tower...
I've already filled in the empty polymer capacitor positions with exact equivalents (Save the batch number obviously), and have replaced almost all the off brand electrolytics.
Above the CPU socket, there is a row of three encapsulated coils and three TO-252 MOSFETs. (There is also a row of three MOSFETs directly above, but ignore them for the sake of this post, they're a slightly different model - AOD452 - and not relevant).
Now as you can clearly see, directly above each of the three TO-252 MOSFETs (Their model is AOD472) is an accompanying pad which is obviously bare. I'm assuming the pad is connected electrically in parallel with their assumed counterpart because there is a clear trace connecting both gate pads.
Now, these particular FETs are no weaklings, they're pretty highly rated and I could probably get by just fine leaving things the way they are, but I wanted to populate them since I was filling empty capacitor spots anyway and thought I'd see if I could source some AOD472. Lo and behold, this part isn't listed on A&O's website nor is it shown to be stocked anywhere (Though it is listed on Digikey, but the datasheet provided curiously shows it as a DPAK part eventhough it is clearly a TO-252 part).
So I naturally bought some of them from Aliexpress, but eventhough I am principally opposed to buying semiconductors from China, I assumed that since this part was so obscure, the Chinese wouldn't go to the lengths to counterfeit it. I even bought from a seller who showed an evidently used part for the item picture (Used is a lot better than fake). Unfortunately they sent me obvious fakes.
So I have several questions:
1) Why doesn't A&O have this listed?
2) Was this subcontracted out? If so, how can I find out who actually made it?
3) If I can't find an exact equivalent, should I try to match it as closely as possible with an equivalently spec'd part or would the slight variations negate any benefit of adding them in the first place?
I've already filled in the empty polymer capacitor positions with exact equivalents (Save the batch number obviously), and have replaced almost all the off brand electrolytics.
Above the CPU socket, there is a row of three encapsulated coils and three TO-252 MOSFETs. (There is also a row of three MOSFETs directly above, but ignore them for the sake of this post, they're a slightly different model - AOD452 - and not relevant).
Now as you can clearly see, directly above each of the three TO-252 MOSFETs (Their model is AOD472) is an accompanying pad which is obviously bare. I'm assuming the pad is connected electrically in parallel with their assumed counterpart because there is a clear trace connecting both gate pads.
Now, these particular FETs are no weaklings, they're pretty highly rated and I could probably get by just fine leaving things the way they are, but I wanted to populate them since I was filling empty capacitor spots anyway and thought I'd see if I could source some AOD472. Lo and behold, this part isn't listed on A&O's website nor is it shown to be stocked anywhere (Though it is listed on Digikey, but the datasheet provided curiously shows it as a DPAK part eventhough it is clearly a TO-252 part).
So I naturally bought some of them from Aliexpress, but eventhough I am principally opposed to buying semiconductors from China, I assumed that since this part was so obscure, the Chinese wouldn't go to the lengths to counterfeit it. I even bought from a seller who showed an evidently used part for the item picture (Used is a lot better than fake). Unfortunately they sent me obvious fakes.
So I have several questions:
1) Why doesn't A&O have this listed?
2) Was this subcontracted out? If so, how can I find out who actually made it?
3) If I can't find an exact equivalent, should I try to match it as closely as possible with an equivalently spec'd part or would the slight variations negate any benefit of adding them in the first place?
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