atmega328p-au counterfeit

[alexsh1]

Hi,

Just heads up. I have bought many atmega328p-au TQFP-32 from China, but this time I have a terrible counterfeit chips. Firstly, I was not able to upload the bootloader. Arduino as ISP would work, but USBasp would not see the board. Then after uploading, fuses were screwed up - I have to force lower fuse 0x62 (1Mhz) and then go back to 0xE2 (8Mhz) in order to make it work at 8Mhz. When I tried to upload the sketch, serial monitor showing a lot of garbage. I tried 3 different chips from 7 and all of them are bad. What a time waste!.
A new order has been place for new chips with Digi-key.

[gohan]

Where did you get them? Report the issue and ask for refund

[Yveaux]

@alexsh1 Interesting, as I wasn't able to find any counterfeits reported that seem to work slightly.
Sparkfun has some counterfeits reported that appear to only have a copper plane inside, but obviously they won't work at all.
Could it be that your ATMegas are just handled badly (by the seller), or second hand, or...
Anyway, I agree with @gohan to refund.

Edit: This looks scary: https://www.avrfreaks.net/sites/default/files/forum_attachments/LGT8F88A V1_1.pdf
and ftp://imall.iteadstudio.com/Microcontroller/IM131218002/Migrating_from_ATmega88_to_LGT8F88A_v1.0.pdf

[gohan]

@yveaux said in atmega328p-au counterfeit:

Edit: This looks scary: https://www.avrfreaks.net/sites/default/files/forum_attachments/LGT8F88A V1_1.pdf
and ftp://imall.iteadstudio.com/Microcontroller/IM131218002/Migrating_from_ATmega88_to_LGT8F88A_v1.0.pdf

what about it?

[Yveaux]

@gohan it is a chip which is supposed to be almost identical to an atmega88, which uses the same avr core as an atmega328.
So maybe clones of atmega328 do exist...

[gohan]

Well... that's just a speculation.

[Yveaux]

@gohan true, but the topic of this thread deals with counterfeit atmega328.
I'm just thinking aloud if these could exist, that's it ;-)

[alexsh1]

@gohan Its eBay. The seller is from Shenzhen, china.
Let's see if this would yield anything. I just feel frustrated as I lost so much time, which I could have spent elsewhere.

[alexsh1]

@yveaux I am 99% sure this is a chip problem. I have tried a few from a same batch with the same results. For example, I upload a bootloader with l:0xe2 and h:0xde fuses but the chip is running at 1Mhz. How is that possible? I had to manually write l:0x62 and than l:0xe2 in order for it to run at 8 Mhz. And I am talking about several AVRs with the same pattern.

Even the font on the AVRs is different from the ones supplied from arrow.com.

Somehow, I was convinced I could make it work.

[Yveaux]

@alexsh1 said in atmega328p-au counterfeit:

Even the font on the AVRs is different from the ones supplied from arrow.com.

That could be caused by the atmel microchip merger, but we'll probably never know...

[gohan]

@alexsh1 My first nrf24 chips were fake not working clones, I spent so many hours trying to get them working but it was impossible as I later found out. Returned them and got other ones (clones too 😅)... I know the frustration

[Nca78]

It could be a lgt328, 328 clone by LGT (like the lgt88 quoted earlier). It's the chip used on the wemos XI. I bought one long ago and gave up as it has some differences for low power like the need to initialize all pins and even then the power consumption in sleep was in dozens of uA.

[Yveaux]

@nca78 Thanks for reporting! So what I feared is actually reality :skull_and_crossbones:

[gohan]

If they are correctly marked it would be fine.

[alexsh1]

Here I have an example of Chinese (AliExpress) sources atmega328p:

I have tried to solder a few of these, but none of them is working properly. I can upload the bootloader, but cannot upload any sketch.

[alexsh1]

Just to compare these are received today from digikey:

[Yveaux]

@alexsh1 and do the ones from digikey work correctly?

[alexsh1]

@yveaux Yes, the problem has gone as soon as the new chip was soldered and the firmware burned. A lot of valuable time wasted and a lesson learnt - no more Aliexpress for components. Only a reliable source - Digi-key, mouser, allow, Farnell etc.

[NeverDie]

I wonder if this spells death for PCBA, since those parts gets sourced from chinese distributors.

Seems as though reliable chinese distributors must exist, or the entire system there would break down. I just have no idea who they are.