Identification of 2 chips

[Stonent]

I can't find anything on the part number on Toshiba's site, and the other one I can't even tell who makes it.

Both came out of a USB Glucose tester.  A previous revision of the tester used an STM32F103 Cortex M3 chip so I suspect one of these might be an ARM chip.

Pictures of these chips on the board are here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/this-might-make-an-interesting-teardown-(free-usb-glucose-meter)/15/

Also if it helps both chips are about the size of 1/2 of your small finger's nail. (6 or 7 mm?)

[Caleb_P]

Most likely custom badged chips. If you buy enough or pay extra, the manufacturer will gladly put whatever labeling you want on the chip.

[Paul Price]

The one on the left is definitely not an ARM chip.

[Stonent]

The one on the left is definitely not an ARM chip.

Why? Do all ARM chips have to say ARM on them or something like that?

[amyk]

I'm inclined to say it might be ARM-based, given that Toshiba has a few and the older design was ARM-based too.

The BGA on the right is also present on the older version, some sort of analog front-end processing I'd guess.

[Stonent]

Possible identification of the second chip:

http://datasheet.octopart.com/UPD70F3796GC-UEU-AX-Renesas-datasheet-10979623.pdf

Renesas UPD70F3796.. I don't know for sure if I'm right, but the part number is a partial match and they do have lqfp and bga versions.

More possible proof, on their applications page they show a some medical devices and one of the pictured devices is an unmarked Bayer glucose meter (same "contour" brand, but different design)

http://documentation.renesas.com/doc/DocumentServer/R01CL0029ED0200.pdf

Integrated 256 to 1024k flash, 100 to 128 pins, 40 to 80k ram, 2.0 to 3.6v.

http://am.renesas.com/press/news/2011/news20110808.jsp

Renesas Electronics America Announces V850 Microcontroller Demonstration Platform for Continua®-Certified Blood Glucose Meter Agent

[amyk]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Good work!

That's a pretty full-featured MCU with lots of peripherals. Unfortunately it's also a relatively obscure architecture and also has a "disable chip erase" security setting, so it might not be able to be cleared and repurposed easily.

The older revision of the device has a Matsushita BGA in its place. Something else equally obscure...?

[Stonent]

Yeah, I had my heart set on an ARM chip, even a low end one like the STM32 or Atmel SAM.
But I am considering getting a cheap digital logic analyzer so maybe would be something interesting to probe around on. There's certainly enough test points.