My old payment card (chip-and-pin credit/debit) expired some time ago and as usual bank delivered new one and told me to cut the old one to pieces. Around here chip-and-pin has been typical for long time now so naturally this old card had the chip too. Out of curiosity I decided to see if I could take it out and see ... well, anything at all.
After some careful cutting I managed to get the contacts and chip off the plastic, here seen under microscope (on metal standoff)
The other side. Somewhat blurry, rounded things around the center are openings to contacts on other side and yellow-ish rectangle in center the chip itself. You can also see five wires connecting the chip to the contacts. All that is under some kind of protective glue or filling. I actually expected to see only a typical black blob but I don't mid this at all. Already I could tell that this was pretty much everything I could hope to see with my limited set of tools; aside tiny openings on chip for the wires, it seemed to be entirely covered with some kind of mask (that's the yellow-ish part, picture doesn't really have enough resolution to see it properly).
After some careful bending the blob broke and exposed the chip inside, but it was (as expected) also ruined in the process. No matter though, I don't have suitable equipment or chemicals to see any deeper anyway. I'm willing to bet though that there are many others who have done deeper analysis of these chips (on both white-hat and black-hat sides of the fence).
So a quick glance on the chip. Nothing unexpected, really, and digging deeper would some better equipment (chemical and/or machinery) than I have available.
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