are these STM32 ICs genuine or clone ?

[mehmet.karakaya]

Posted on June 04, 2018 at 15:17

hello dear forum,

I used to buy STM32 F103 mcus from my countries biggest supplier

this IC below is 5,- USD there 

now becouse of competition I need more cheap products and I imported 

this below IC for 2,35 USD from China

I soldered this on to my board and I saw that it is working  

( I downloaded code and tried some peripherals )

I could not check all the functions yet 

my question ;

this big price difference makes me suspicious

is this second picture genuine or clone ?

did you experience this second ICs ?

can I trust this second ICs ?

whats your opinion ?

thank you

#clone #stm32f103 #genuine

[mehmet.karakaya]

Posted on June 07, 2018 at 20:48

You mean Chinese have copied a ST mcu ?

is that,     this easy ?

[henry.dick]

Posted on June 07, 2018 at 20:55

'

is that,     this easy ?'

to some, yes.

this 'ST MCU' is really a 3rd party IP (ARM core) + ST peripherals (some of which could be licensed from other people). So it is not that difficult to license the same core from the same 3rd party, and slap on your own peripherals to produce a MCU that's functionally (materially) identical to ST's, bugs aside.

[Bogdan Golab]

Posted on June 07, 2018 at 21:09

I only heard about Giga Devices but these chips were clearly marked by GD prefix:

https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/chinese-clones-attack-stm32-microcontrollers/

 

[Klavs Rommedahl]

Posted on June 08, 2018 at 08:56

It looks like some counterfight chip. Try to see if Your programmer Tool can read the type and serial from a 'good' chip and from these cheap ones, I guess, You cannot read from the last one.

[AvaTar]

Posted on June 08, 2018 at 09:03

I have a hard time believing THIS chip to be counterfeit.

From a cost-benefit point of view, this sounds ridiculous.

[Willunen]

Posted on June 08, 2018 at 13:53

'The ICs I imported were unused and they were never soldered  before'

Well, that's what I thought of the cheap chips I bought via ebay as well...

Seeing that a stm32f103c8t6 at Mouser is around 4 euro (plus shipping)

and one bought in China can be had for about 1 usd (less than 1 euro, free shipping) I couldn't resist it.

The chips look new, are clean, no solder, not scratched or anything. But when I wanted to use them they all were 'readout-locked'. It is hard to imagine ST producing pre-locked chips.

As they were sold as new, I complained and got refunded.

[BRYAN SPEED]

Posted on June 11, 2018 at 22:29

Dear Sir;

You may submit an online support ticket, and we can try and help you. We will need photos of the label on the reel, if any, or other shipping labels. Also, please let us know who the vendors are when submitting the support ticket.

[mehmet.karakaya]

Posted on June 12, 2018 at 18:47

hello Mr Bryan,

what is a support ticket ?

thank you

[BRYAN SPEED]

Posted on June 12, 2018 at 18:56

On the ST Website: 

http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/support/support-home.html

Support Request - via web form

[mehmet.karakaya]

hello dear ST,

my support request about this issue

is not answered since long time

https://my.st.com/ols#/ols/editrequest/00062723

thank you