John McMaster
@johndmcmaster
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IC reverse engineering, #mtvre , CTO @LabsmoreLLC
Santa Clara, CA
Joined August 2015
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
Skywater SKY130FD integrated circuit cross section. You can see the layers that make up a chip including the metal wiring and transistors!
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After years of gathering parts, I finally got a pair of Motorola Sectel 9600s to make a secure call! This version is a "type 4" civilian version of the STU-III secure phone that (was?) used for classified communications
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4K
This PCB routes optical fiber using electrical jumpers
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2K
Someone gave me a stack of these beautiful probe cards they were throwing out!
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1K
So...a second flea market vendor came with bulk wafers today. I'm not saying I have a problem but it might be if I buy this many wafers each month
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I love them because they have literal "encryption keys." Makes every use of encryption feel like you are launching an ICBM
(source: )
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Successfully got the data out of a broken PAL16L chip by using three micropositioners: 2 for fuses and 1 for the broken bond wire
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STM32F407VGT6 lapping down to mechanically remove one layer at a time
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Hi my name is John and its been two hours since my last microscope purchase
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Free 37" cyclotron in Berkeley! Tempting... (ad cropped for size)
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Google-Skywater MPW1 MM1 (layer Metal 1) photomask preliminary pictures
Background: MPW1 is the first in a series of open source semiconductor projects using the Skywater foundry. Chips layers are manufactured by shining light through a photomask, a sort of mold
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Capcom DL-3229: the CPS3 CPU, a Hitatchi HD6417099 SH-2
High resolution zoomable image:
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MOS 6501 CPU, the much less known predecessor to the popular 6502 CPU
High resolution zoomable image:
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Every mad scientist lab needs tubes going everywhere
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Unfortunately these CIKs are very hard to get. But check out this talk if you want to see some early attempts I made at cloning them:
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Its also worth mentioning this MFM tester that is the only commercial product I'm aware using the parallel key form factor. However, they appear to be ROMs (OTP?) so are unusable as CIKs. They are easily identified by their hexagon head
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Motorola MC6802: an 8-bit microprocessor based on the popular MC6800. Released in 1977, the MC6802 added an on chip oscillator, 128 bytes of RAM, and a 32 byte sleep state
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Fiber laser decapping resulted in "grass" similar to RIE. Believe this was caused by focus getting better as distance increased leading to a runaway etch
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SpaceX Starlink Kit dies!
1) GEA AA12 analog chip (?)
2) GLLBLU analog chip ("clock distribution amplifier"?)
3) GLLBSU "SHIRAZ" Digital BeamFormer (DBF)
4) CATSON V20 SoC
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Good having
@BitBangingBytes
visit this weekend! Here he is micro probing an address line on a PIC16C57
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CBM LED watch broken LED segment repair journey! The right digit's left-top segment is out as seen on the faulty 0. What caused it and what can we do?
Watch sent by
@WysWyg_Protogen
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SoundBlaster (80C51) ROM staining: before and after HF cleanup to remove lingering oxide
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Yamaha XQ036A0 wavetable synthesizer
High resolution zoomable image:
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If you want to see SIM card die shots you are going to be in for a treat! More coming...
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Announcing the Device Programming Wiki which documents devices and protocols to read/write EPROMs, PALs, and other chips :
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People said I should use more modern Windows so I am proud to announce I upgraded Service Pack from SP1 to SP3!
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Zilog Z8038018FSG CPU, a member of the Z380 family of 16/32 bit Z80 compatible CPUs
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#simap
sharp Cynthia (GPU in Sharp X68000 1987 computer). Special thank to
@EstebanVLobos
for supporting this project!
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High resolution oil objective test. Old 20x 0.42 NA => new 60x 1.4 NA
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Reviving an old Tempress 1100 wedge bonder in hopes to use it for a consulting project
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Intel 43201, an iAPX 432 "micromainframe" CPU
Features variable bit instructions and an object oriented architecture. While interesting, experiments like these led to many issues and ultimately made the chip a commercial failure
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Play-a-Sound's "Scooby-Doo! Where Are You" contains a Sunplus PA5280
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Excited to see most of the die images on the home page were neither taken nor added by me!
@furrtek
in particular has been busy :)
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Bought 30+ USB serial converters. They claim PL2303 core and the case molding is very sturdy...but can we verify what's actually inside?
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Sharp CYNTHIA Jr. sprite controller from the Sharp X68000 home computer (1987)
Zoomable image:
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I found a giant stack of PIC16C62A dies last week and have a few of wire bonders. Make your own PIC microcontroller at a future
@hackaday
supercon?
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Why does my virtual machine have a loose network cable?
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RP1-C0 die image from Raspberry Pi 5
High resolution zoomable image:
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WIP computerized metallurgical microscopes for industrial and prosumer use (ex: chip panorama creation)
Interested? We have systems built with new parts as well as more bespoke systems. DMs are open!
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People are mailing me bulk chips, enabling my chip hoarding problem
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FPGAs so expensive people make fake PCBs: 3+ on the board costing $152,700 *each* on Digikey
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Exploring a few Atmel USB microcontrollers with different SKUs but the same die
First, Atmel AT90USB82 (8 KB) and AT90USB162 (16 KB) are the same die but advertised with different amounts of flash
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Great seeing everyone at the mountain view reverse engineering meetup yesterday! Thanks for being patient while we sorted out the venue issue
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Interested in learning more about converting mask ROM microscope images into firmware? Looking for help with a small Python project towards understanding Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) better. PM if interested!
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Wow! A lot more interest in this than I was expecting. Maybe I'll make some short YouTube videos of it operating
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Wanted: original GameBoys for CPU full teardown project ("DMG-CPU-B"). Dead or alive. Please DM if you can send me!
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Live decap L7805 5V regulator (TO-220 package). Fourth bond wire for "four point probe" style current feedback. Very deep cavity!
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Chip repackaging project "Second Production" (scaling up) debrief. Earlier I posted some preliminary ideas of how to quickly and gently decap a large number of chips. What did I settle on?
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Decap die by sandblasting with baking soda. Was pretty gentle on the pads, might be useful for repackaging
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#simap
NXP MCIMX6Z0DVM09AB ARM A7 CPU as used in the USB armory Mk II open source secure small computer. Special thanks to
@AndreaBarisani
for supporting this project!
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Roland R15239148 (MIDI controller) from Sound Canvas SC-55 mk1
"This Roland GS (MIDI) module supported 24-voice polyphony with 16-part multitimbrality" => TLDR "sounds great"
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Motorola MC14500 "Industrial Control Unit (ICU)," an early programmable logic device controlled via serial commands
Zoomable image:
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Renesas R5F1026AASP, an RL78/G12 MCU. Decapped and imaged with
@edgetriggered
Zoomable image:
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@moftsoft
You'll get this message. You can choose one of 16 keys to initiate the call and the other side will try to select the matching key if it exists.
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I'd love to decap a bunch of counterfeit chips, ideally those with good stories. DM's are open if interested! Might take me a while to get to them but should be fun
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Security mesh helps protect against microprobing. It also signals this is a higher security chip
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Working through project backlog. Here are two "pyuscope" computer controlled microscopes to ship out in the near future for prosumer grade chip imaging
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@_Akamig
The call "technically worked" but there was something wrong with it...one of the phones kept clicking and the call kept fading in and out (ie resync?). That aside the audio I got through wasn't amazing
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EPROM erasure time increasing with each additional program-erase cycle (Intel D27C256 w/ PE-140T)
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#simap
GB Boy (Game Boy Color clone) flash cart IC. Charge pump? Thoughts from
@TubeTimeUS
or
@kenshirriff
?
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usbrply (high level USB reverse engineering tool) now natively supports Windows .pcap files! Check out the updated README or join discussion on freenode
#usbrply
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New home page design with image gallery! Looking for suggestions / feedback
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That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you want more information on something!
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Heading to
@hackaday
Supercon soon with a menagerie of FOSS microscopes. Hit me up if you want something imaged or just want to chat!
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