Decapping two chips to compare hardware differences | Hacker News Reader

Decapping two chips to compare hardware differences

jelmertiete.com

21 pointsbmease4 comments

If you like this sort of thing you'll love Chris Tarnovsky's old blog [0] and talks like this [1] DEFCON talk about ST19WP18 chips where he compares different versions

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20111111114352/http://www.flylog...? it seems to redirect to a generic ioactive blog which is a real shame

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh238PUqz3I

really interesting article. if the authors research is correct, and TI is crippling cheaper hardware with firmware, its both evil and genius (why pay for design and tooling and manufacture of 2 different chips, when you can make 1 and cripple half of them?)

I am sure the author is correct the dies are the same, but it is not particularly evil or genius, it is just making you pay for costs associated with software they included. Effectively they are charging different amount for different software packages, which is not shocking since each of the stacks included the appropriate patent and license fees for the technologies, and those are different for each.

That is not at all shocking, at this part of the value pipeline the manufacturer passes prices on to the purchaser pretty directly. In fact, a far larger difference in price than the type of software they load is the type of packaging them come in. The author is comparing prices for chips sent to him on cut tape. He quotes:

CC2630F128RGZT: $11.87 CC2650F128RGZT: $15.03

But if you buy them on reels (which are the exact same part):

CC2630F128RGZR: $7.55 CC2650F128RGZR: $9.77

IOW there is a $2-$3 variation based on what software they give you and patents/sublicenses they have have to pay for. There is $4-$5 difference based on what kind of boxes they ship them in*

* Yes, the reels only come in larger quantities, but since these are raw chips and not modules you are going to need to go through FCC certification for any device you build with them which is going to end up being a minimum of $5000 if you ship them off to a test lab in china, and closer to $10000-$15000 if you do it in the US or Europe. Nobody is going to pay that sort of NRE for a product they are going to make less than a few thousand of, so for a product like this you are not going to buy it in low quantity packaging unless you are prototyping before you are ready to through regulatory certification.

How is it evil?

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