New Documentation: An authoritative reference on the YM2612

[dtech]

I assumed "Nemesis -> MEFAS -> Chilly" path because as far as I know, MEFAS doesn't care about receiving things from other countries - it's only about sending.

Anyways this should be cleared out along with the price on all of this. I think I will myself cover some significant part of the price the MEFAS will want. Yet don't know how much spare pennies I'll have, but I feel comfortable on spending them on such research.

[Chilly Willy]

We should probably find out what it would be for just the YM2612, and for both the YM2612 and VDP. That would give us an idea of whether we can scrape up enough to do both or to just do the YM2612 for now.

[dtech]

Unfortunately, MEFAS has no email address mentioned in their website, so it's up to somebody located in US to call them up to avoid international call fee hell burden.
http://www.mefas.com/contact.html

From them we should get:
- price on decapping DIP24 package
- price on decapping PQ type packages
- deal on many chips sent them at once (possible discount on each additional)
- explicitly reask if it is ok for them to receive chips from outside us if sending "back" will be to a us location.
- price on photography in suggested resolution for die sizes and integration scale of chips circa 1989.

[TascoDLX]

Unfortunately, MEFAS has no email address mentioned in their website, so it's up to somebody located in US to call them up to avoid international call fee hell burden.

You should know that MEFAS is owned by EAG (apparently since November 2007!), so I suggest you check http://www.eaglabs.com/. EAG also has labs in Europe and Asia, so you might be able to get this done without the overseas shipping hassles.

[dtech]

Ok then it might simplify things.

Europaen one is in France - so, anybody from France there?
http://www.eaglabs.com/contact/france.php

Or UK:
http://www.eaglabs.com/contact/uk.php
(Is there anybody from UK or even better - Wokingham?)


There is, however, no information about what they can do in this particular lab. Probably the same stuff that they do elsewhere. Anyways this should be cleared out, to avoid possibility that they shuddenly send chips around world and then ask a lot of additional bucks for that.

[Eke]

I work very nearby (~10 km) from the first location so let me know if i can help in the case they don't ship back worldwide.

[dtech]

I work very nearby (~10 km) from the first location

Woow, that's excellent! I think it further changes planned logistics to:

Nemesis(Australia)--postal-->Eke(France)--driving-->EAG

EAG--pickup-->Eke(France)--postage-->whoeverpays(whereverpays)

That's if EAG can hangle everything within lab in France. And if prices are reasonable.

Eke, could you please someday give them a call and ask those questions I mentioned above? That is:

- price on decapping DIP24 package
- price on decapping PQ type packages
- deal on many chips given them at once (possible discount on each additional)
- price on photography in suggested highest resolution, adequate for die sizes and integration scale of chips circa 1989.

[Eke]

The problem is that I have no full idea about what you are trying to achieve, neither technical background so I'm pretty stuck if they start asking me more technical details by phone, which they probably would do since it depends on a lot of factor.

It would be pretty better if you directly discuss with them via email or via the website form, seems the right thing to do according to the website. I can eventually help if payment/shipping is not possible worldwide but that's all, I really not feel comfortable discussing hardware details with them

[Chilly Willy]

Uh, MEFAS has an email address: lab@mefas.com

It's on their profile page. If necessary, I could call them, but we want to do what we can by email since that will avoid unneeded expense. While calling would not be an international charge for me, it would still be a long distance charge.

[dtech]

Drums roll now.

Ok I contaced EAG, which forwarded me to MEFAS, because chip decapsulation and photography cannot be carried out in other labs. So it was unnecessary fuss around EAG, yet we now at least know that there are no such simple ouside-us options.

So yes, Chilly Willy, we will need your help in this regard!

All is very good and doesn't cost too much. In fact, chip decap costs slightly less then we know, and photography costs are exactly twice the amount (that we know about chip decap) an hour, and two hours are expected time for full analisys for all works for every chip.

Discount offers kick in only when working with >10piece volumes of the same chip (not for us for now).

From the two hours of inspection time we will get large volume of pictures that we can edit together and have fun. (yay! a puzzle assembly!)

I was realy surprised that service there, at least in communication level, is truly awesome.

So we have now a fallback to the initial logistics plan:

Nemesis(Australia)-->maybe Chilly Willy(US)-->MEFAS(US)-->Chilly Willy(US)-->Whoeverpays(Wherever)

The second is a "maybe" point because I am currently clearing out the issue with them - wether they can receive and/or send packages from outside US (maybe something has changed to one side or another).

PM me for exact numbers and info I've got from them.

[notaz]

I can donate a bit for this too. For great justice! (and maybe for some raw pics too)

[Stef]

I can donate a bit too

[dtech]

Nice, me and Chilly Willy (we chatted thru PM about the matter) are highly likely to donate, too.

At the moment I have no spare resources, yet I plan to have them by next month and so for this great cause I might put maybe a half/whole buck for a kilobyte of genesis memory (both dram and sram) Genny is definitely worth it even in 2010.

As we seem to need around 400 bucks total, there have to be at least 4-8 donators to keep donations within reasonable/possible range.

Current idea is that most trustable guy of us could gather the money and then send it to the company along with chips (yes, Nemesis).

Seems that we actually might get this done around the fall of this year, unless someone set up us the bomb.

[Chilly Willy]

This is a tech site, and if we stick to those of us who have been here and contributed to handle the task that require a bit more trust (like collecting the donations), I think we'll be fine. No picking someone with one post who joined just to say he'll collect the donations.

[koilazka]

dtech, what would 400 be for, decap and pictures for one chip, or 2 or?

Ive never heard of this before, would the pictures be pictures of the silicon slide?

If so, can you guys here translate them into schematics?

Sorry for silly questions, sounds like an awesome thing to do.