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New production of 68020s, 6809s, and more

Is there a market for these? I never would have guessed 68020s to be rare or particularity desired. 6809 maybe.

Now.. there are some 65xx processors they could make.
 
KC9UDX said:
Now.. there are some 65xx processors they could make.
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65C02, 65C22, 65C21, 65C816 are still in production, and 65C51 too - although that one has a bug, unlike old 65C51 chips. So maybe there's no market for starting production of the old NMOS chips.
 
Tor said:
65C02, 65C22, 65C21, 65C816 are still in production, and 65C51 too - although that one has a bug, unlike old 65C51 chips. So maybe there's no market for starting production of the old NMOS chips.
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How about the 6507, 6509, 6510, 6512, and 65CE02?
 
commodorejohn said:
The simpler 680x0 CPUs I believe saw a lot of use in automotive applications back in the day.
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And industrial applications, and countless workstation computers. This is why I can't imagine any 680x0 is rare now. Other than maybe the 68010.
 
KC9UDX said:
How about the 6507, 6509, 6510, 6512, and 65CE02?
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Ah, the Commodore specials.. definitely not in current production. So that would be valuable to people like us. But I get the impression that Rochester's target audience is industry with old production systems needing replacement parts, and not us hobbyist folks. Which also possibly destroys my hope of getting modern versions of the 6809 in CMOS at higher frequencies, and I don't know how much the Hitachi 6309 was used. The '..the exact same device' part of the article sounds like the original NMOS at original frequencies and that's it. Better than nothing, of course.
 
The 6509 in particular would be very valuable to people like us. The trouble is, it's actually a good thing that it isn't in production because it's a terrible design (in retrospect, of course).
 
I wonder if they consider the 6800, also. I ran into trouble finding one for an industrial controller some years ago.
 
KC9UDX said:
Is there a market for these? I never would have guessed 68020s to be rare or particularity desired. 6809 maybe.
Click to expand...

I suspect Rochester is banking on military sales of these chips far into the future - 10, 20, maybe 30 years. The US military is very concerned about counterfeit parts now, and it is certainly possible for the Chinese to produce these parts with malware in them. Rochester is a trusted source (and the prices reflect that!).

--
Will
 
toober said:
I suspect Rochester is banking on military sales of these chips far into the future - 10, 20, maybe 30 years. The US military is very concerned about counterfeit parts now, and it is certainly possible for the Chinese to produce these parts with malware in them. Rochester is a trusted source (and the prices reflect that!).

--
Will
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So what we need to do is sell Uncle Sam something with a 6509 in it. :D
 
I have just had a meeting with Rochester Electronics today about purchasing a whole load of components from them from the 1980's era so I can make some 'new' boards...

They have either stocks of components themselves (traceable back to the OEM) or silicon wafers (again, traceable back to the OEM) that they can slice, dice and encapsulate - or the original masks so that they can make new silicon (via a FAB) from an OEM design.

The costs depend upon what they have in the pipeline. If you want a chip that they have - but no one has ever bought it from them in the past - then there will be an up-front NRE cost associated with re-starting production of that particular device. If someone has previously purchased the particular part you want - then the charges will be somewhat lower.

Some of my colleagues have already been 'stung' by purchasing semiconductor devices through the supply chain - only to find that the 'new' devices are pulls or (as I found the other day) sub-standard.

I have bought components from Ch1na for hobby use and they have been fine - other people have bought from the same source and they haven't.

As a warning, if you want 'mission-critical' components that work as per their specifications (as I do) don't buy from e-bay, amazon, or from far-eastern origin (or through a broker that may buy from these sources without you knowing).

Dave
 
Maybe someday, not too far in the future, we'll be able to 3d-print our own ICs at home... :sigh:
 
yeah that, and why, if they're so concerned about security, not dissect these ch1neez chips and see if there are any bugs to speak of? If so, contract some ch1neez (or Singapore, or ...) plant to make what you want. Does that sound unreasonable? If they're using such old stuff, the military/gov't that is, some expert has to be around that could examine their innards w/not too much problem. No?
 
Well sure, but reverse-engineering ICs takes time. It's relatively easy to get the cover off and take photos, but to actually sit down and work out the intricacies of the function? And imagine having to do that for every major-function IC in a project, on top of all the other time-sinks government projects have to worry about.
 
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