“Fake” or not, I think these images would make great patterns for Art Nouveau/Art Deco stained glass windows. The colors and symmetry are mesmerizing. Thanks for publishing this.
"Second sourcing" or reverse-engineering is relatively easy. We had a critical component that has a hidden electronic signature because we got complaints from customers. We had to protect ourselves. Their purchasing departments used unauthorized suppliers. They bought fakes.
TL081. I bought from Amazon, Aliexpress, Farnell and I also had few spares salvaged fom old electronics. I needed 4 of them and to be fair, the Farnell ones were the closest to the old salvaged ones (that I ended using at the end) but those bought from A*** online shops were some with no FET inputs or were just out of specs. So, unless I will find a good source for real and good components, I will use mostly what I can salvage from older electronic boards (70`s-90`s broken electronics). After all, my needs are quite low, I make circuits for hobby. I made a simple oscillator circuit to test them and watched the output on the scope, after that I compared the waveforms at 1KHz, 10KHz, 100KHz and 1MHz.
I can see fakes of amps that are multiple dollars per part. Faking LM358s does seem like a mug's game. There are even fake magnetic cores out there. You can find counterfeits painted to look just like Micrometals powder cores.
Had some fake LM324s find their way into production at work. They got found out because the PCB layout was *so bad* the original, slow op-amps ran OK but the faster fake ones screamed like crazy! If the layout had been done properly they might have worked, at least for a while…
Guess nobody has yet seen a dual opamp made from half a quad opamp yet, though I would bet that they are out there, as it is easy to see if somebody has a few wafers of reject dies, and put it through the tester to sort out those that had at least 2 working parts, and then did the colour drop to indicate which half to use. Then bonded them to a paddle and leadframe, and bonded out either half to get fakes that sort of worked.
I’ve never thought that deeply on it honestly , but now that you point it out I feel like surely they exist. I love messing with cheap opamps because I design guitar effects and sometimes the garbage has positives in that realm. I’m gonna look at the worst of the worst in my collection for what you described because it truly piqued my interest
It seems the faked chips are potentially easier to make because Chinese lithography ability is poorer, but many of these chips are 30-40 years old. Couldn't they replicate such an old process? I guess they can copy the function with a simpler product? Also, are these fake chips Chinese original designs or a copy of an unknown(unidentified) design? I have watched YT series from fellows who have lived and traveled in China. Deception and lack of quality in the name of expediency and/ or cost cutting from Chinese manufacturers(of all kinds) no longer surprises me.
Might your fake LM358 be a MCP665? The MCP665 is a dual op amp with a high Gain-Bandwidth Product of 60 MHz and two chip select lines, so that doesn't fit with the die image, but the high bandwidth certainly matches the slew rate you saw.
It's kinda depressing this is happening so much. It's clearly a clash of culture and one is taking advantage of the other. I came across an explanation of this by a Chinese manufacturer (in a very different industry) who actually doesn't like this kind of thing. They recognised that it gives Chinese manufacturing a bad name outside China. But there is both a cultural element as well Chinese IP laws that are different to most of the West that would have to change.
Are those fake chips actually op-amps? And if not, is it known what they are, exactly? I only ask because I kept thinkin' that you should send them to CuriousMarc and ask his friend Ken to reverse-engineer them.
Turning dual opamp's into single opamp's sounds rather stupid. A bit like the gentleman who made fake 10 pence pieces here in the UK by filling the edges of the 50 pence piece !....cheers.
Very interesting! Thanks! Could you do a video explaining how different components (resistor, capacitor, diode, etc) are implemented on a die? You mentioned the big X's in one photo were FETs, so more of that.
Not only op-amps are faked - I found a fake 78L05 5 volt regulator marked WS78L05 that seems to be missing over temperature and maybe over-current protection. As it overheats, the output voltage keeps rising well above 6 volts. Might be OK for a voltage reference but don't load it with much current.
I usually always order parts from reputable sellers (digikey/mouser) for the real designs I'm working on. But I have gotten some cheap common parts here or there from Amazon just for when I mess around on a breadboard, I bet I got some fakes as well. I should characterize them and check. Thanks for the video!
Thanks, It was interesting to see how ic crystals looks under scope Well any who interested can also listen noise performance of lm358 jrc4558 ne5532 + other ics, i made video
They don't care at all. It is not like they are trying to really compete, they just want to dump the fake chips and make an easy buck. Edit: It might even be that some chips are "real", but were bought and relabeled afterwards.
They do production runs on the chips like LM358 and have plenty of left over dies to put in fake parts. They are not "making up" fake dies, they simply are using left over parts they end up with. Some are legit parts that don't meet specs. They don't throw them away like they should. Always buy from industrial suppliers like Mouser, Digikey, Avnet, etc. Ebay is a crap shot, sometimes a great deal, but there are many scammers in the mix!
I see the original chips have more intricated designs. Those colorful intricated layers would need special processes to create them, which adds to the cost. Why you would want do that when you can just wire a simpler in-home design, or some capped one which you already produce in quantities, and batch it in your fake devices at the cost? Isn't like they don't know how to do them, or they didn't already pirated the blueprints. Is simply it doesn't make sense from the "bussiness" standpoint... Or at least that's how it looks to me.
I had sent one each of the LM3915 and LM3916 Dot/Bar LED Driver ICs that I got as free samples from National Semiconductor to Zeptobars for decapping. He has posted the Die photo of LM3915 in his website.
I would be concerned about power consumption if the wrong type of die got mounted into a package or simply relabeled. That's actually something that you can easily measure for a sanity check. Also helps you to tell whether a dual opamp was sold as a single, or a quad as a dual. You can also measure whether the offset compensation pins are connected. I suspect that all of those fakes were test fails and should never have seen the light of day to begin with. It might not matter if you were just going to build a Xmas tree LED flasher though... I worked at semiconductor companies and they invented and built a chip (die) crusher machine to mechanically destroy the test fails. That's not as easy as it sounds since silicon dust is combustible. I wonder whether they learned that the hard way. That was 20 years ago. I always wondered why would you even do that. Just give back to nature and dump dies in the desert or add to concrete. Only now I understand... Other companies would burn on-chip fuses to disable parts of the chips that weren't working as specified and sell for lower price with truthful marking. But it would not be feasible for dual opamps...
“Fake” or not, I think these images would make great patterns for Art Nouveau/Art Deco stained glass windows. The colors and symmetry are mesmerizing. Thanks for publishing this.
Everybody loves chip die of the day
chip of the die
"Second sourcing" or reverse-engineering is relatively easy. We had a critical component that has a hidden electronic signature because we got complaints from customers. We had to protect ourselves. Their purchasing departments used unauthorized suppliers. They bought fakes.
The one you referred to as a '659' is upside down. It's actually a 659.
ok, I've been corrected 😁
TL081. I bought from Amazon, Aliexpress, Farnell and I also had few spares salvaged fom old electronics. I needed 4 of them and to be fair, the Farnell ones were the closest to the old salvaged ones (that I ended using at the end) but those bought from A*** online shops were some with no FET inputs or were just out of specs. So, unless I will find a good source for real and good components, I will use mostly what I can salvage from older electronic boards (70`s-90`s broken electronics). After all, my needs are quite low, I make circuits for hobby.
I made a simple oscillator circuit to test them and watched the output on the scope, after that I compared the waveforms at 1KHz, 10KHz, 100KHz and 1MHz.
Unless the fakes are made from trash off-runs, I can not understand the economics of making the fakes...
Silicon die for this op amps cost few cents, but they sell for more if branded as TI or AD. Mark up in integrated circuit design is insane.
I can see fakes of amps that are multiple dollars per part. Faking LM358s does seem like a mug's game.
There are even fake magnetic cores out there. You can find counterfeits painted to look just like Micrometals powder cores.
@@d614gakadoug9 With cheap parts they have less risk of getting complaints, and they sell them in big quantities, unlike expensive ones...
Had some fake LM324s find their way into production at work. They got found out because the PCB layout was *so bad* the original, slow op-amps ran OK but the faster fake ones screamed like crazy! If the layout had been done properly they might have worked, at least for a while…
Guess nobody has yet seen a dual opamp made from half a quad opamp yet, though I would bet that they are out there, as it is easy to see if somebody has a few wafers of reject dies, and put it through the tester to sort out those that had at least 2 working parts, and then did the colour drop to indicate which half to use. Then bonded them to a paddle and leadframe, and bonded out either half to get fakes that sort of worked.
I’ve never thought that deeply on it honestly , but now that you point it out I feel like surely they exist.
I love messing with cheap opamps because I design guitar effects and sometimes the garbage has positives in that realm. I’m gonna look at the worst of the worst in my collection for what you described because it truly piqued my interest
The same part numbers from different manufacturers often don't have the same die. The problem is if the part doesn't meet the published specs.
It seems the faked chips are potentially easier to make because Chinese lithography ability is poorer, but many of these chips are 30-40 years old. Couldn't they replicate such an old process? I guess they can copy the function with a simpler product?
Also, are these fake chips Chinese original designs or a copy of an unknown(unidentified) design?
I have watched YT series from fellows who have lived and traveled in China. Deception and lack of quality in the name of expediency and/ or cost cutting from Chinese manufacturers(of all kinds) no longer surprises me.
i ordered OPA1612 on ali twice and when i decapped them they had a C665 die. it was like a tenth the size of what the opa1612 is
Since so many C665 dies are available for fake chips, I conclude the manufacturer of real C66. has a very bad production yield and a lot of scrap...?
Might your fake LM358 be a MCP665? The MCP665 is a dual op amp with a high Gain-Bandwidth Product of 60 MHz and two chip select lines, so that doesn't fit with the die image, but the high bandwidth certainly matches the slew rate you saw.
It's kinda depressing this is happening so much. It's clearly a clash of culture and one is taking advantage of the other.
I came across an explanation of this by a Chinese manufacturer (in a very different industry) who actually doesn't like this kind of thing. They recognised that it gives Chinese manufacturing a bad name outside China. But there is both a cultural element as well Chinese IP laws that are different to most of the West that would have to change.
Are those fake chips actually op-amps? And if not, is it known what they are, exactly? I only ask because I kept thinkin' that you should send them to CuriousMarc and ask his friend Ken to reverse-engineer them.
Yes. They are opamps
Could you upload a video explaining how Johnson counters work?
Turning dual opamp's into single opamp's sounds rather stupid. A bit like the gentleman who made fake 10 pence pieces here in the UK by filling the edges of the 50 pence piece !....cheers.
well, if you can etch an expensive-sounding label on them and charge 10 times what you could if you labeled them correctly...
Amazing investigation! Nice! but sad and annoying plage. Fortunately I have old DIPs and otherwise I buy SMD locally
That was cool. 👊
pure evil
Unscrupulous people
Very interesting! Thanks! Could you do a video explaining how different components (resistor, capacitor, diode, etc) are implemented on a die? You mentioned the big X's in one photo were FETs, so more of that.
Not only op-amps are faked - I found a fake 78L05 5 volt regulator marked WS78L05 that seems to be missing over temperature and maybe over-current protection. As it overheats, the output voltage keeps rising well above 6 volts. Might be OK for a voltage reference but don't load it with much current.
I usually always order parts from reputable sellers (digikey/mouser) for the real designs I'm working on. But I have gotten some cheap common parts here or there from Amazon just for when I mess around on a breadboard, I bet I got some fakes as well. I should characterize them and check. Thanks for the video!
ones with 45 degree tracks look cooler. :)
China has a saying "if you can cheat then cheat."
Freak parts are a big issue.
I know little about chips, but are all the copies done by the same person or group? Seems like they share a common look to them.
Or they're just copies of copies...
Thanks, It was interesting to see how ic crystals looks under scope
Well any who interested can also listen noise performance of lm358 jrc4558 ne5532
+ other ics, i made video
It doesn't appear they ever try to copy the real chip. Why not?
They don't care at all. It is not like they are trying to really compete, they just want to dump the fake chips and make an easy buck. Edit: It might even be that some chips are "real", but were bought and relabeled afterwards.
They do production runs on the chips like LM358 and have plenty of left over dies to put in fake parts. They are not "making up" fake dies, they simply are using left over parts they end up with. Some are legit parts that don't meet specs. They don't throw them away like they should. Always buy from industrial suppliers like Mouser, Digikey, Avnet, etc. Ebay is a crap shot, sometimes a great deal, but there are many scammers in the mix!
@@glasslinger don't have a choice , those suppliers ship for 20$ minimum and I have to pay for customs fee too.
I see the original chips have more intricated designs. Those colorful intricated layers would need special processes to create them, which adds to the cost. Why you would want do that when you can just wire a simpler in-home design, or some capped one which you already produce in quantities, and batch it in your fake devices at the cost?
Isn't like they don't know how to do them, or they didn't already pirated the blueprints. Is simply it doesn't make sense from the "bussiness" standpoint... Or at least that's how it looks to me.
@@mahadotube Sorry. There are big advantages to living in USA. I have no answers to help you.
Do they work anyway?
not they way the original does
I had sent one each of the LM3915 and LM3916 Dot/Bar LED Driver ICs that I got as free samples from National Semiconductor to Zeptobars for decapping. He has posted the Die photo of LM3915 in his website.
I would be concerned about power consumption if the wrong type of die got mounted into a package or simply relabeled.
That's actually something that you can easily measure for a sanity check. Also helps you to tell whether a dual opamp was sold as a single, or a quad as a dual.
You can also measure whether the offset compensation pins are connected.
I suspect that all of those fakes were test fails and should never have seen the light of day to begin with.
It might not matter if you were just going to build a Xmas tree LED flasher though...
I worked at semiconductor companies and they invented and built a chip (die) crusher machine to mechanically destroy the test fails. That's not as easy as it sounds since silicon dust is combustible. I wonder whether they learned that the hard way. That was 20 years ago. I always wondered why would you even do that. Just give back to nature and dump dies in the desert or add to concrete. Only now I understand...
Other companies would burn on-chip fuses to disable parts of the chips that weren't working as specified and sell for lower price with truthful marking.
But it would not be feasible for dual opamps...
I want a setup to view die shots.
Very good.
#afconlives