So I took apart an Alpha...

[CPUShack]

Had a Compaq Alpha 21264C that had a big missing chunk of ceramic so I popped the heat spreader (it was glued on well)

Small die (only 15 million transistors) @ 0.18u

Made by IBM clearly

[gg1978]

Cool, i always wondered what the 21264 die looked like..

How difficult was it to pop the heatspreader off it??

Not that i am going to do that to any of mine, but it looks like it's attached pretty well on those..

[CPUShack]

silicon based glue around the edges, I used several razor blades and pounded them in between the ceramic and heatsink, slow going, but works well.

Can be made easier by warming up the processor a bit.

Now seeing where the die is, and how small, you can see you have little worry of hitting the die (as opposed to other packages where it is nearly to the edge)

[hugo929]

cool work, next time seeing such a naked chip we will know it is 21264C

[CPUShack]

at least the ceramic says EV68

[CPUShack]

So just noticed, the heatspreaders on these are 2 pieces.
A square ring of aluminum that is glued to the ceramic, and then the plated copper heatspreader is glued to that, the copper is not directly glued to the ceramic, probably allows for thermal stressing.