X-ray diffraction imaging (XRDI) (topography) measurements of silicon die warpage within fully packaged commercial quad-flat no-lead devices are described. Using synchrotron radiation, it has been shown that the tilt of the lattice planes in the Analog Devices AD9253 die initially falls, but after 100 °C, it rises again. The twist across the die wafer falls linearly with an increase in temperature. At 200 °C, the tilt varies approximately linearly with position, that is, displacement varies quadratically along the die. The warpage is approximately reversible on cooling, suggesting that it has a simple paraboloidal form prior to encapsulation; the complex tilt and twisting result from the polymer setting process. Feasibility studies are reported, which demonstrate that a divergent beam and quasimonochromatic radiation from a sealed X-ray tube can be used to perform warpage measurements by XRDI in the laboratory. Existing tools have limitations because of the geometry of the X-ray optics, resulting in applicability only to simple warpage structures. The necessary modifications required for use in situations of complex warpage, for example, in multiple die interconnected packages are specified. © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Centre for Diffraction Data. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. [doi:10.1017/S088571562100021X]