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Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine?

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Mark Zenier <mzenier@eskimo.com> wrote:
> In article <mta7tc$59o$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
> Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>If you _really_ want to be sure, you'll have to remove the epoxy and
>>look at the silicon die itself under a microscope. Ideally you'll
>>want a known real chip (or images from the 'net of one) to compare
>>with.
>>
>>Here's a good resource for information on how to do it, I've been
>>wanting to try this myself for years: 
>>http://siliconpr0n.org/wiki/doku.php?id=decap:epoxy
> 
> Isn't the chip a generic microcontroller?  The reason the
> counterfits could be bricked was that they were still 
> programmable and the bad driver reprogrammed some of it.  
> 
> So a device programmer or a evaluation board with a programmer for
> that device that could read the suspect device would show that it's
> a counterfit.  Assuming that a real FT232 device would fail to read out.

Not according to these Real Vs Fake die images:
http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/FTDI-FT232RL-real-vs-fake-supereal

Certainly it would make sense for a USB controller to include a
microcontroller internally, but I don't believe the official chip
is an "off the shelf" microcontroller (and it is shown on the above
page that the die has FTDI's name printed on it).

The fake shown on that page does apparently use a somewhat generic
microcontroller to pretend to be a FTDI chip. Looking at the die,
it is easy to differentiate between this and the custom design of
the official chip.

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Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Robert Roland <fake@ddress.no> - 2015-09-12 19:30 +0200
  Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> - 2015-09-12 21:57 -0400
    Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Robert Roland <fake@ddress.no> - 2015-09-13 12:17 +0200
      Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> - 2015-09-13 12:25 -0400
        Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Robert Roland <fake@ddress.no> - 2015-09-13 19:21 +0200
          Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> - 2015-09-13 17:09 -0400
  Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Spehro Pefhany <speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> - 2015-09-15 05:43 -0400
    Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Robert Roland <fake@ddress.no> - 2015-09-15 20:02 +0200
      Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2015-09-15 22:59 +0000
        Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? mzenier@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) - 2015-09-16 15:25 +0000
          Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2015-09-17 22:40 +0000
          Re: Is my FT232 fake or genuine? Robert Roland <fake@ddress.no> - 2015-09-18 19:45 +0200

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