Atmel AT91SAM7S Overview
Atmel produces a number of ARM based devices in their portfolio of products. We had one laying around the lab so here we go as usual… The device was a 48 pin QFP type package. We also purchased a sample of the other members of the family although the initial analysis was done on the AT91SAM7S32 part shown above. All pictures will relate to this specific part even though there is not a signifigant difference between the other members of this line except memory sizes. After decapsulating the die from…
Atmel CryptoMemory AT88SC153/1608 :: Security Alert
A “backdoor” has been discovered by Flylogic Engineering in the Atmel AT88SC153 and AT88SC1608 CryptoMemory. Before we get into this more, we want to let you know immediately that this backdoor only involves the AT88SC153/1608 and no other CryptoMemory devices. The backdoor involves restoring an EEPROM fuse with Ultra-Violet light (UV). Once the fuse bit has been returned to a ‘1’, all memory contents is permitted to be read or written in the clear (unencrypted). Normally in order to do so, you need to either authenticate to the device or…
AT90S8515 – Legacy!
Some people asked for some of those older Atmel parts after seeing the MEGA88 and ATMEGA169 teardowns. Here’s a quick one on the AT90S8515. It’s still very popular even though it’s been replaced by the MEGA8515. It’s built on a larger process and it’s not planarized (.50um and below are planarized but you may find some .50um non-planarized) 8KB Flash, 512 Byte SRAM, 512 Byte EEPROM with 32 working registers. That’s sooo nice! 4x faster than the typical PIC. There was a mistake in the above picture too when we…
ATMEGA88 Teardown
An 8k FLASH, 512 bytes EEPROM, 512 bytes SRAM CPU operating 1:1 with the external world unlike those Microchip PIC’s we love to write up about :). It’s a 350 nanometer (nm), 3 metal layer device fabricated in a CMOS process. It’s beautiful to say the least; We’ve torn it down and thought we’d blog about it! The process Atmel uses on their .35 micrometer (um) technology is awesome. Using a little HydroFluoric Acid (HF) and we partially removed the top metal layer (M3). Everything is now clearly visible for our…
Atmega169P (Quick Peek)
We were curious if Atmel has finally shrunk the AVR series smaller than the current 350nm 3 metal layer process. Their main competitors (Microchip) have began showing 350nm 4 metal layer devices and Atmel has a few new product lines out (CAN, Picopower, and USB featured devices). We chose to examine their picoPower line of AVR’s since they claim true 1.8v operation. The only picoPower device in stock from Digikey was the ATMEGA169P. We used the 64 pin…