Why are these 2 memory cards so different?

[u/ReintegrationTablet]

I bought 2 Nuby memory cards online, there was inly one picture in the listing so I assumed they'd be the same. On the left one, there's a date code of 2000.6.15 and the right one has a date code of 01/07/28. The left one looks less clean, like someone made it by hand? The right one looks more factory-made. Any clue? Thanks!

[u/tpimh]

One is early third-party card (two blobs), the other is later iteration (only one blob). They were trying to make the manufacturing cheaper and combined the controller and flash dies under a single drop of epoxy.

[u/ReintegrationTablet → u/tpimh]

Interesting, thanks!

[u/ReintegrationTablet → u/tpimh]

Wait, if that's the case, why does the two blob have a later manufacturing date?

[u/tpimh → u/ReintegrationTablet]

I can't see the date from the photos, but maybe the two blob version is actually cheaper. It has fewer components: only one capacitor and one resistor in addition to the two ICs. And the first version has a lot of unpopulated components too.

[u/ReintegrationTablet → u/tpimh]

Thanks for the answer! I just thought it was strange

[u/SonOfJaak → u/ReintegrationTablet]

It could also be that the one blob chip die was no longer available so they had to redesign.

[u/ReintegrationTablet → u/SonOfJaak]

That makes sense, thank you!

[u/tsubasaplayer16]

Hardware revisions. Usually done to make manufacturing them cheaper. This is common among a lot of electronics

[u/ReintegrationTablet → u/tsubasaplayer16]

Thank you!