Thanks, if you buy a couple of <= 0.65mm pitch chip from Farnell, Digikey, etc etc....then how do you know how many times its been re-reeled?
And how do you know if the staff did the re-reeling with ESD precautions?
Also, is machine re-reeling gauranteed to always be safe from ESD damage?
How good is there-reeling process....i imagine a lot of chips fall out and have to re-reeled by hand?
I can appreciate that with good/regular customers, distributors take the extra effort to get chips that are as new as possible (few re-reels), but for lesser customers, maybe such precautions aren't taken?
These people don't re-reel, they cut tape off one reel, maybe splice on header and footer extensions if you're lucky and put that on a fresh reel.
Re-reeling is done by 3rd party kitting services, typically they would be re-reeling because they have pre-programmed something for you and are shipping it reeled or because they have sourced say a DPak in tubes and you want tape or perhaps you are in aerospace and have had those parts refinished in lead.
The only thing DK/Farnell/etc will do that involves new packaging is when you want a small number of something and it comes packaged in something that doesn't cut down as easily as a tape. That can mean ESD boxes, bags, crudely cut bits of tube snapped up bits of tray, cute little mini trays (they seem to be a new thing), custom blister packs and little foam wedges, the person doing that doesn't know who you are or how special your relationship is. ESD compliance will eb company wide, enforced and inherent in their process Only some of those options are done on demand, others are clearly pre-packed on masse in smaller quantities. Physical damage from improper handling, packing or inaccurate use of scissors is not unheard of.
ESD damage of a complex chip is more likely to cause a fault or field failure than give you a dead chip, have you not watched all the Youtube videos of people zapping stuff on purpose?
The most likely reason these devices failed is you killed them, a short, a wayward probe, poor soldering technique, an assembly error you fixed when you reworked the chip...