Trying to Identify A Chip: 10-pin SOIC HS110N-J - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Relic
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 01:48:03 am
content: Alright, I'm hoping some one more skilled in the wizardry of electronics could help me out. I've been trying to identify some smd chips out of an old remote control helicopter I came across. They're actually quite nice little toys considering their limited range of control, and the batteries melting down after X-amount of recharging cycles. At any rate, the tiny RC copters have an IR receiver on the main board, followed by an atmel 2 wire serial EEPROM chip, 2 apparent transistors on the reverse side, and a bunch of passives scattered about the board. There are only two IC components on the board, and one being the EEPROM chip. The unknown chip is a 10 pin SOIC that reads HS110N-j on its surface. I presume that the unknown has to be a small microcontroller of some sort - from which manufacturer I can not say. Shining a flashlight against the back of the board, I was able to follow pin 4 of the chip to ground, and pin 2 connecting to one of the motor transistors. The other pin traces run below the EEPROM chip and pop out onto the reverse side of the board so I'm finding it hard to follow those. Although, considering the EEPROM is from atmel I had hoped I might get lucky and be able to find a 10 pin SOIC micro on atmels website. This turned up nothing for me. In all likelyhood, I'm doing something wrong with my searches and the data sheet is staring me in the face, and I just can't see it. If someone recognizes the naming scheme of the chip or might know where to even vaguely look, I'd be really grateful for your help. Attached below is the picture of the board -If I can get the data sheets for the ICs, I might just go out and pick up a second one. Could always salvage the board and make a dual rotor tri-copter.

author: KJ6EAD
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 05:54:10 am
content: Dramatic side lighting, a moving camera and an upside down image don't provide useful information.

author: Relic
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 08:42:18 pm
content: Quote from: KJ6EAD on August 26, 2011, 05:54:10 amSorry, my camera isn't all that great. This was as close as I could force the manual focus down and still be able to make anything out. The entire board is just slightly smaller than my thumb, so it is really quite small. I'm still looking for a camera mount or some kind of little tripod, so until then my camera work isn't going to be 100% stable. I'm not sure what you mean by upside down image, though.At any rate, without a proper schematic of this board even macro-photography wouldn't glean you much more info. Many of the traces of the chip I wish to identify go directly up under the eeprom chip and then to the other side of the board. I can only follow pin 4 to ground and pin 2 to a transitor. I've been trying hook my oscope up to the chip to glean some more info that might help identify which pin does what, but the IC hook tip on my probe is easily larger than 3-4 pins put together, so clipping onto a single pin is proving quite difficult.Since apparently my last post wasn't useful information, I'll try to break it down here -I'm trying to identify a single chip from a small circuit board - "HS110N-J". The board comes from a small remote control helicopter. The remote control for this toy has 3 modes, so more than one person can use a similar copter in the same area. I'm guessing that is what the eeprom is for - it must store the current bound remote ID inside, probably. The eeprom chip is an atmel made 8 pin SOIC variant, with surface lettering as follows -ATMLH724028 1P6J6456CI already found the data sheet to this chip, thanks in part to another post on your beginners forum asking about a related chip with a similar name.The one chip I have yet to identify is a 10 pin SOIC style chip with " HS110N-J " etched on the surface. It only has that single line on the chip, no other markings. This is the first time google / the whole slew of chip databases has failed to identify a chip for me. If you recognize some obscure company initials that start with "HS", that would probably even be enough to get me where I need to be. I suppose it is possible this is some sort of proprietary chip designed for this board only. Although, considering its other parts are all off the shelf SMD stuff, I think I might get lucky. I figure the chip has to be some kind of microcontroller, I mean what else is going to handle the incoming data from the IR receiver, and then read/write to the 2 wire serial eeprom?

author: KJ6EAD
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 09:40:53 pm
content: By upside down I mean that if you're going to ask people to help you identify an IC, you should show it well lit with pin 1 on the lower left so that any markings on the face of the IC will be easily readable. Some of us will recognize logos, mold marks or the lack of same.

author: Relic
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 10:33:14 pm
content: Ah, I see.Hopefully this picture is adequate, had a sunny day today so the natural lighting made everything a lot easier to photograph.

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2013, 04:27:46 am
content: Interesting, this same chip is the heart of the Sylvania Golden Dragon under-cabinet LED light. It uses 3 AA cells and runs the LED at about 350 mA peak, about 83% on (300 mA average) at bright and about 17% at low power (60 mA average). My reverse engineering determined that pin 2 is ground, pins 5 and 8 are connected to power, pins 1 and 10 are driving simple SOT-23 NPN BJTs, one for the main LED, one for an IR LED used in the proximity sensor, and pin 7 is an input derived from the proximity sensor's photodiode. Like you I could not find any info on the chip. I had assumed that this IC was a custom job since it is in a mass produced device, but when I found your post I changed my mind. Can't be that many producers of 10 pin, 1 mm pitch packages, it is an unusual part! Also, it is strange that 4 pins are usused...maybe that is why these lights list for $16 or $17 (they were on clearance at my local big-box grocery store for $3.74, so I bought 5 of them since I knew the LEDs being used, having bought just one for over $15.00 about 9 years ago).Here's a photo, with the lens holder removed: I know that you cannot make out the chip number: it only has HS110N on it, nothing else (no -J).

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2013, 04:53:53 am
content: Probably a n-channel mosfetSomething similar to these:http://uk.farnell.com/rohm/rss110n03fu6tb/mosfet-n-30v-11a/dp/1525547http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/BSO110N03MS%20G/BSO110N03MS%20GINTR-ND/2080686Check the pinout, if only 3-4 pins are used, that would be a hint.. since these have only 3 things exposed .. source, gate and drain.In the last picture, the mosfet may be used as a sort of reverse voltage protection (in case you wire the light incorrectly) but I may be wrong.Seehttp://myelectrons.com/mosfet-reversed-protection/(somewhere down the page)

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2013, 05:03:21 am
content: Sorry, but not the case. It produces two different PWM pulses depending on whether the proximity sensor has been blocked once or twice, or none for the third pass of an object. It must have an internal oscillator (no external timing components are apparent) and it must run a program. So it has to be a small uC. I certainly have seen the type of FETs that you mention, this is not one of them. I am a professional EE circuit designer, so know a bit of what I type (and it does have 6 pins connected, even if two of them are to V+)!

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2013, 01:22:56 pm
content: That is an odd pin layout... nothing like any of the 10-pin uC's I know of.The only other way I can see is to decap the chip and scan the die for any markings.

author: jeroen74
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2013, 09:56:49 pm
content: Maybe it's fromHoltek. Though no partno matches.

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2013, 10:20:58 pm
content: Package doesn't match either. A MSOP-10 is in a 3x3 mm package with 0.5 mm lead pitch. These are definitely 5x4 mm with 1.0 mm pitch! Good try though, I had not thought to look at Holtek.

author: jeroen74
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2013, 10:32:53 pm
content: There are likely loads of other rather obscure far-east manufacturers out there that could have made that chip. Is there any text on the bottom of the chip?

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2013, 12:55:31 pm
content: I think I found it!At first I thought it was this:http://www.eorex.com/downloads/datasheets/mcu/EU1010.pdfeorex (how do you pronounce that?) EU1010 - OTP 8-bit MCU "packaged into 10-pin non-JEDEC-standard compact-size SOP"but the Vss/Vdd pinout didn't quite match, so I dug a little more using search terms from that datasheet...http://www.emc.com.tw/eng/database/Sa2/Gp/An/Sel/20101006H2v2.pdfThose part numbers and packages in the "P100 series" look really convincing... they might've made an EM78P110Nat some point.Looking at e.g. EM78P134N's datasheet:http://www.emc.com.tw/twn/database/Data_Sheet/8BIT/EM78P134N.pdf2 is ground, 5 is power, 8 is reset. Perfect match.

author: jeroen74
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2013, 01:04:35 pm
content: Elan... I think heard about them before... seems quite an obscure brand. Their products are PIC clones according to Wikipedia but with 13 bit instructions.Anyway, good find

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2013, 02:57:57 pm
content: Excellent! Though I'm having trouble on the ELAN site finding package dimensions. All I see are a couple of 10 pin possibilities 0.118" as listed at the bottom ofhttp://www.emc.com.tw/eng/8bit_prod_dsc.asp?gid=&tid=000002&tt=8bit_lowpin_ds&nn=OTP+Low+Pin-Count+MCU+Seriesand the data sheet allows for a 150 mil package as well. Now, assuming that this one number is the package "height" (the dimension of the body as measured from the sides that the leads protrude from, to be clear) then neither is 4.0 mm. However 0.150" is 3.81 mm, so probably that's it, see photo where my calipers are set to 0.15".It really would be nice if manufacturers always made package dimensions easy to find!

author: KeithBrown
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2013, 04:31:18 pm
content: Is the original poster, Relic, still around? It would be interesting to know whether what has been deduced so far is compatible with what he has. Clearly the package looks the same (compare his unknown chip with the EEPROM next to it) and though the part numbers are almost the same they are not exactly the same.