Drawn to true relative scale — the variants above are directly size-comparable.
Thick-Film Hybrid Microcircuits
Traces must be butter-yellow, matte and visibly raised like dried paint — if the conductor is grey, white-silver or dull chrome it is Ag/Pd or Cu thick film and worth about 2% as much.
How to spot it
White or off-white alumina tile 0.5–1.0 mm thick with screen-printed traces, black laser-trimmed resistor rectangles showing zig-zag trim cuts, and wirebonded bare die under glob-top or a hermetic Kovar/gold can. Markings: MIL-PRF-38534 class H/K, JAN/JANS, DSCC SMD numbers, Micro Networks, Teledyne, Anaren, M/A-COM, Raytheon or Hughes. Sizes 5 mm square to 100 × 150 mm; found in missile seekers, radar T/R modules, flight controls, satellite buses, pacemakers and downhole tools.
Metal content
| Metal | Quantity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 1.5–4 g/lb packaged; 5–10 g/lb stripped substrates | Fired thick-film gold is 7.1–9.8 µm — 5–8× thicker than 50 µin mil plating. All figures calculated, no public assay |
| Silver | 0–15 g/lb on Ag/Pd conductor variants | The majority of hybrids ever built; worth ~1/70th per gram of the gold ones |
| Palladium | present in Ag/Pd pastes | Not separately payable at most refiners |
At 4 Aug 2026 spot prices that works out to $328 per pound of contained metal — Gold 2.5 g = $326, Silver 1 g = $1.90. A refiner paying $280 returns about 85% of that, which is normal: refining costs money and the buyer takes a margin.
Safe removal
Working temperature: Lid seal ~280 °C; polymer burn-off 500–600 °C
Shear or prise the Kovar lid — the Au-Sn seal releases at ~280 °C on a hotplate — snap the substrate out, sort by trace colour, burn off polymer at 500–600 °C under forced ventilation, then wet-mill the alumina to under 100 mesh before leaching. Expect 85–93% recovery even with good milling; thick-film gold trapped in glass frit is the loss mechanism.
Hazards
NEVER grind, sand, file, saw, drill, abrasive-cut, sandblast, hammer, crush, shred, torch, melt or incinerate anything that might contain BeO. Sell or dispose of suspect parts intact. Broken beryllium parts are worth nothing; your lungs are worth everything.
NEVER put BeCu in a grinder, a sandblaster, or a melt.
NEVER dry sweep or use compressed air on a scrapping bench. HEPA-vac or wet-wipe only.
NEVER grind, burn, torch or braze cadmium-plated or AgCdO material, and don't inhale the black contact dust.
NEVER burn boards, wire insulation or plastic. Ever.
NEVER grind, sand, saw or incinerate anything that might contain thorium or radium. Sealed sources stay sealed.
Before you scrap it
The common trap
Questions
How much gold is in thick-film hybrid microcircuits?
Gold: 1.5–4 g/lb packaged; 5–10 g/lb stripped substrates. Silver: 0–15 g/lb on Ag/Pd conductor variants. Palladium: present in Ag/Pd pastes. At current spot that is about $328 of contained metal per pound.
How do you identify thick-film hybrid microcircuits?
Traces must be butter-yellow, matte and visibly raised like dried paint — if the conductor is grey, white-silver or dull chrome it is Ag/Pd or Cu thick film and worth about 2% as much.
How do you remove thick-film hybrid microcircuits safely?
Shear or prise the Kovar lid — the Au-Sn seal releases at ~280 °C on a hotplate — snap the substrate out, sort by trace colour, burn off polymer at 500–600 °C under forced ventilation, then wet-mill the alumina to under 100 mesh before leaching. Expect 85–93% recovery even with good milling; thick-film gold trapped in glass frit is the loss mechanism.
Is thick-film hybrid microcircuits worth more working than as scrap?
Very high multiple for identifiable mil/space parts — 10–100×. A JANS-screened Hughes or Raytheon hybrid that scraps for $3–20 resells to avionics repair houses for $150–2,000. Only anonymous, snipped or corroded material should be refined.
Related in ICs & chips
Get this offline → The full guide runs in your browser with no signal, and you can add your own photos.