What electronics are inside the SPIKE 3x3 LED Matrix?

Question

What is inside the LEGO 3x3 Color Light Matrix 45608?

Pictures of the assembled Top- & Bottom- PCB would be helpful.

Answer 1

There are 4 clips holding this together. It isn't too difficult to get apart with a little prying. Here's what it looks like with the cover removed:

The board can then be popped out of the housing. Here's a close-up of the front:

There are 9 surface-mount LEDs just as one might expect.

Here's a shot of the back of the board:

The larger chip appears to be numbered:

V0269
3235A

I believe that this part is a 28-port dimmable LED driver. This provides enough output to drive the display (3 x 3 x 3 colors = 27 LEDs).

The smaller chip appears to be numbered:

S103
PHVC
0317

Here's a better shot of that chip:

This looks like an STM8S103 microcontroller similar to the chip used in Powered Up motors that provide position feedback.

There are also a number of smaller chips and passive components on the board, but they are probably a bit less interesting.