![]() You must replace it with a non counterfeit FTDI chip to continue using this driver.” They could also have not completely screwed over people by giving them till a date, or X number of uses before the driver refuses to communicate with the chip, to give people time to source a new chip, or replace the device. The issue that stands, is rather than have the driver put up a pop up saying “The USB to serial chip used in this device was detected to be a counterfeit device. The issue is not that the chips were reverse engineered, but that the chips are sold AS FTDI PARTS.įTDI has a legal right to go after that, not that the chip’s functionality was duplicated, so YES, it is totally alright to clone a chip, as long as you are not just copy-pasting the design (you must reverse engineer it), and as long as you are not falsely claiming it as a genuine original (that, they DO, unfortunately)… ![]() If those chips were sold with a different part number, or even with the same part number, but marked as being non-FTDI, then they would be perfectly permissible. Now, the chips sold _as FTDI_ chips are indeed counterfeit, as they claim to be something they are not. Reverse engineering is a PERFECTLY LEGAL thing. You can sue a competitor for pirating your device. That meant that random devices, made from distributor stocked chips got BRICKED, with no warning… A few legitimate distributors got had by the fakes. Not all users of fake FTDI chips _knew_ they were fake. It’s not fine to attack your end customer by bricking their devices. What’s the cost? Basically the cost of an external crystal and a serial EEPROM. I say ‘almost twice as awesome’ because you can’t do synchronous FIFO on one interface with a second interface on an FT2232H, so you have to use async FIFO mode.īasically, an FT232H is an FT232R + FT245 + new features. An FT2232H is almost twice as awesome because it gives you that high-speed interface *plus* a second interface you can configure as a JTAG interface to the FPGA. The synchronous FIFO mode can push ~5 MB/s with very little fuss. The FT232H is also just super-useful as a high-speed interface chip to, say, an FPGA. Basically, any kind of serial interface you can handle fine. Then you swap the FT232H into MPSSE mode, lower the reset line, and you can program the SPI at ~megabytes per second. In that case, you can just tie a GPIO to the reset line of the microcontroller, and have a bus transceiver enable the FT232H to take over that SPI. But you want to be able to program the SPI occasionally (say, for initial programming). So suppose you’ve got an SPI flash on the board which *normally* talks to the microcontroller that the FT232H is there to talk with via serial. ![]() So if I just need serial, I go with a CP2104.īut the fantastic thing about the FT232H are the alternative interface modes. Posted in Repair Hacks, Slider Tagged desoldering, ftdi, FTDI gate, rework, soldering Post navigationĪs a serial adapter, they’re not any better – but then again, a CP2104 is also just as good and not any cheaper. With the new chip, the cheap USB to serial adapter board works perfectly, although anyone attempting to duplicate these efforts might want to look into replacing the USB mini port with a USB micro port. A bit of solder braid, and the board was ready for the genuine chip. To replace the counterfeit chip, covered the pins in a nice big glob of solder, carefully heated both sides of the chip, and slid the offending chip off when everything was molten. Notwithstanding driver issues, the best reason for swapping out fake chips for real ones is the performance at higher bit rates is doing work at 3 Mbps, and the fake chips just don’t work that fast. 2 was a variation on a theme where the FTDI driver would inject garbage data into a circuit if a non-genuine part was found. This bricked a whole bunch of devices, and was generally regarded as a bad move. 1, where the official FTDI driver for Windows detected non-genuine chips and set the USB PID to zero. Why is replacing non-genuine chips with the real FTDI? The best reason is FTDIgate Mk. It’s brilliant, and an excellent display of desoldering prowess. While you can buy a USB to serial adapter with a legitimate chip, found a cheaper solution: buy the counterfeit adapters, a few genuine chips, and rework the PCB. This means the chips on the cheap adapters are counterfeit. The chip on this board is an FTDI FT232RL, and costs about two dollars in quantity. If you know where to go on the Internet, you can pick up an FTDI USB to Serial adapter for one dollar and sixty-seven cents, with free shipping worldwide.
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