Is it possible to do hardware unlock to remove activation lock?

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. Replace "energy" by "iPhone" and you get the idea of what you're up against :>).

Sacrificing a perfectly good non iCloud-locked board to fix another iCloud-locked board doesn't really give you anything you didn't have before. This only makes sense if you are trying to save data from a damaged board and you move the heart and brain to the iCloud-locked board.

While some techs have the skills to do this somewhat successfully, most don't and like you said, it doesn't make sense from an economics perspective unless you are a refurb house with low cost but skilled labourers.

BTW...congrats on 20K!

@refectio I agree, key here is that the energy gain needed to achieve a working iPhone, is drained by the microsoldering technician time and efforts, someone has to pay one way or the other. Talking about low cost refurb houses, some months back I got a 64Gb iP6 pretty cheap for spares..when I opened it I found chinese seals, missing some RF components. Well, they jumpered baseband, no joy, they closed it and resold it somewhere else. That made me think that also chinese repair firms discard harder repairs without thinking twice..would that be because of the huge numbers they deal with or China too is no longer the low cost labour paradise it used to ? Thanks for congrats, I appreciate =:) Someone should buy me a drink..or should I ? I'll think abt it..

Definitely get a drink...maybe @kaykay can get you a t-shirt!