I don't know of any modern chips that have "ceramic coatings." (Some chips, esp. CPUs, are still ceramic-packaged, but in these cases the metal or ceramic lids are easily removed.)

Most chips are plastic-packaged, and plasma ashers and/or chemical baths will expose the chip surface easily enough.

Yep....I guess my age was showing ;-) _______ Warren Crossfield Programmer/MacOS "Buy a Pentium - so you can restart Windoze faster!"