Gate array decapped!

[robcfg]

Hello everyone!


As I told in another thread, @Cpcmaniaco and I sent 4 different Gate Array chips (40007, 40010, PreASIC and ASIC) to Sean Riddle (Sean Riddle's Home Page
Sean Riddle's Home Page) for decapping.


Today he sent me the first picture, which is the 40010 GA. I have to say it looks impressive, and finally we can have a peek at the inner working of the GA.


I uploaded the picture to the Gate Array wiki page.


Enjoy!

[Singaja]

Could this be done with ASIC?

[dragon]

My 3mb adsl is colapsed to view the foto. good work guys!!.

[robcfg]

I guess so, that's why we sent him a PreASIC and an ASIC chip.

[dragon]

Me da error la foto a pantalla completa os pasa a vosotros dice no se puede mostrar la imagen porque contiene errores.

Vale arreglado, la he descargado con el jdowloader jeje.

[Gryzor]

It was probably a downloading error, the image is perfect - if it wasn't jDownloader wouldn't help


Amazing artwork for a wall print. I'm thinking this, an armchair, drugs. Duuuuude!

[gerald]

I uploaded the picture to the Gate Array wiki page.

Is that the highest resolution available ? Some features are difficult to see.

[Arnaud]

What can we do with it ? Improve emulation / FPGA ?

[gerald]

What can we do with it ? Improve emulation / FPGA ?

Yes. But I do not think there is much to be found on the 40010/40007
However, the ASIC picture would really help improving emulation, be it HW or SW.

[dragon]

Yes. But I do not think there is much to be found on the 40010/40007
However, the ASIC picture would really help improving emulation, be it HW or SW.

Diferent tecnology, if at the finish the 40007 is the ferranti 5000 documented in the book of zx spectrum.

Anyway i think it can be good specially to make new pre-asic chips to dead boards, and in the plus range, we can discover why the bugs of plus range.

[Gryzor]

Is that the highest resolution available ? Some features are difficult to see.

Might be due to jpeg compression? @robcfg was kind enough to send me a 160MB version (though in GiMP format, no idea how this compares to TIFF etc), if anyone needs it I'll arrange something

[gerald]

Might be due to jpeg compression? @robcfg was kind enough to send me a 160MB version (though in GiMP format, no idea how this compares to TIFF etc), if anyone needs it I'll arrange something

160MB is roughly the size of the image linked save in xcf (Gimp). So I guess this is the same resolution.

[robcfg]

Same resolution but without compression artifacts.

[dragon]

Is a channeled gate array?, So the cells are the in the rows and the space are the interconnecion between cells?.

Channeled Gate Array

[TotO]

If I understand well, it is incredible to know that 40010 GA was designed in 1983 by LSI LOGIC and produced by SGS (ST Microelectronics).

[gerald]

Same resolution but without compression artifacts.

Interrested 

[||C|-|E||]

This is amazing! If we had all the data for the ASIC it should be possible to do a perfect FPGA core and a perfect emulator... 

[robcfg]

Some more info on the picture:

That pic was composited from 156 pics taken using a 10x objective, and I scaled it down by about 1/2. I also took pics with a 20x objective, but there are 600 of those, so I need a faster way to composite them.

That's some serious amount of work!


Also:

I was able to figure out the pad numbering from that doc:

Code: [Select]

   5    36 
 6        35




14        26
  15    25

The doc he's referring to is http://matthieu.benoit.free.fr/pdf/amstrad_videogate-array.pdf


@gerald , I sent you a PM 


I'm eager to see the rest of the chips, hehe!

[robcfg]

Is a channeled gate array?, So the cells are the in the rows and the space are the interconnecion between cells?.

Channeled Gate Array

I cannot tell you for sure, as I'm no expert in the field. It looks like one, but I can be wrong.

[Bryce]

Very nice work. He obviously knows what he's doing to have freed the metal layer that nicely without damaging it at all. In high-res this should be "decypherable". Massive amount of work though.

Bryce.

[dragon]

And what happend with the 40008? i view is selling now alone in ebay. We can make a collect or something. To.have all chips decaped.

I cannot tell you for sure, as I'm no expert in the field. It looks like one, but I can be wrong.

I 'm not an expert  only supposed, if is this type one of the horizontal metal layers are vccc an the other ground.

[robcfg]

Very nice work. He obviously knows what he's doing to have freed the metal layer that nicely without damaging it at all. In high-res this should be "decypherable". Massive amount of work though.

Bryce.

Indeed, but at least, we have a starting point, which is more than we had. Any suggestions on how should we start identifying anything on the image?

And what happend with the 40008? i view is selling now alone in ebay. We can make a collect or something. To.have all chips decaped.

Well, CPCManiaco spent quite some time digging through all the CPCs he has at hand, but he couldn't find a 40008.


Anyway, I expect the most changes to happen between 40007 and the other two, as 40008 and 40010 have the same pinout.


Of course, it would be nice to have them all decapped 

[dragon]

Yeah i suppose it we can buy one thats all

And no cpc sacrificed

Amstrad 40008 | eBay

Yeah the 40007 probably share picture infrastructure with ula spectrum, i think the 40008 is made by lsi (without sgs).

I count 37 cells (it appeared agruped by two in two) *18 rows=666 jaja. counting it alone makes 74*18=1332 cells.

[Gryzor]

Crowdfunding?


No idea about the industry, but isn't there any software that can help you decipher the whole thing?

[Octoate]

No idea about the industry, but isn't there any software that can help you decipher the whole thing?

You can use Degate (Reverse engineering integrated circuits with degate - Home). Btw, a nice tutorial on how to reverse engineer ICs can be found here.