Identifying fake semiconductors 2.0

[jippie]

Nice post (and pictures) on Zeptobars about how FTDI managed to 'kill' fake chips.

http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/FTDI-FT232RL-real-vs-fake-supereal

Fake chip was working kinda fine, until FTDI released drivers update, which were able to detect fake chips via USB and send only 0's in this case.

I guess the new driver caused a few headaches both for users and support staff. I guess one could always offer the old driver as a download?

[amyk]

I'm almost willing to bet they're 8051-based.

The real question is why a USB-to-serial adapter should even require a proprietary driver. Windows has one built in (usbser.sys) and my generic Android phone in bootloader mode can use it without installing anything else.

[rastro]

Good article, thanks for posting it.   I guess the good folks at FTDI have provided the end user a test to ID counterfeits - at least for one knockoff.

I just wonder how many of these are lurking in our consumer products?   

[Tinkerer]

Good article, thanks for posting it.   I guess the good folks at FTDI have provided the end user a test to ID counterfeits - at least for one knockoff.

I just wonder how many of these are lurking in our consumer products?   

Even the military gets hit with counterfits.