relabeled AD9910 or a drop-in clone? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: phenol
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2025, 09:40:42 am
content: Following Dave's latest Uni-T bom cost analysis video where he identified the dacs as Corebai parts, I decided to browse their DDS product section and the only product listed there is CBM99D10. A haphazardly slapped together datasheet is also available. Banner specs and pin descriptions are copy-pasted from AD9910's datasheet. It looks like a direct drop-in replacement for AD9910. Some of the specs are a few db worse, though.I'm wondering if they went through the trouble of cloning it from a scratch and spinning their own silicon or just somehow procure genuine AD production scrap and relable it with their own part number.This raises similar questions about the other products in their portfolio.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2025, 10:03:29 am
content: can you share the dave link ?and could be some fakes or very cheap replacements, they substitutes many avr's stm32 or else ...could be defectives or production rejects, or less good components who do work to some extent, there is a market for that

author: phenol
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2025, 10:22:24 am
content: here it is:cbm99d10 on LCSC is 3 times cheaper than AD9910

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2025, 11:00:19 pm
content: There are quite a few parts we found where they just straight up copy the original datasheet. Unless someone performance validates them, who knows if they meet original spec. In this case if they adjusted the specs, then that would indicate that they have some actual experience with the part.The history is interesting, within a year they have a bunch of layout patents:https://corebai.com/en/about.html###Some discussion of other ICs they've cloned:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40622485(CBM9002A = cypress FX2).LCSC price $20:https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/Direct-Digital-Synthesis-DDS_Corebai-Microelectronics-CBM99D10BQ_C476451.html?s_z=n_CBM99D10BQ

author: phenol
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2025, 06:23:58 am
content: Yes, they included their own spectral plots, as well as some extra ones, but no phase noise plots. go figure. The package drawing is also hilarious.I don't know what would justify the expenses of actually cloning and spinning your own silicon of a niche product like that.in addition to that, its package topology looks suspiciously similar to that of a genuine AD part

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2025, 09:46:48 am
content: The part may not be such a niche product, especially if the price is reasonable.The cases follow a standard. So it is normal to see very similar looking cases.

author: jwet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 12:29:08 am
content: These high resolution, fast, high end DAC's are used a lot in modern communication systems. They grew out of a lot of investment by DARPA and companies like Raytheon for Military comms and Radar. Analog Devices was central in all this stuff. The first civilian application I remember seeing was in cable TV head end systems. Maxim made a part for this market. Analog cable is just a bunch of 6 MHz video channels jammed together on cable. The old architecture was to modulate each channel with a little mixer and combine them into one monster signal that goes out over the cable. This took a rack of line cards, etc. This was how cable was done for a long time.About 15 years ago, these systems started doing everything in the digital domain in a monster FPGA and running it to a high resolution, high speed DAC. These DAC's could easily produce over 100 6 MHz channels from one DAC. Broadband over CATV (DOCSIS) pushed this much further and uses lots of these kind of DAC's. This function is a high volume near commodity function part today. There are a lot of chinese companies that just copy these die, the documentation and get the last few years out of the production life. ADI has generally moved on to better things and sort of accepts it as the margins start to erode at end of life. The chinese vendors pick up the lower margin crumbs and ride these products into the ground.The high resolution, high speed digital scope market is driven by similar economics on the ADC side. Most still use ADI or TI/National but this will change. Just wait, you haven't seen nothing yet. These parts are still made in 45/35 nm or so processes.

author: jwet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 12:53:24 pm
content: Check out the AD9177- 3 year old part.Quad 16 bit DAC, 12 GBPS, Analog BW >8GHz, 324 BGADigikey Unit Pricing is Only $892

author: mawyatt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 01:41:26 pm
content: Recall back in ~2008 at the MTT when a Keysight VP showed us a new dual 14GSPS 14 Bit DAC called Griffin designed in SiGe [discussion started over a beer, long story] At the time this was the most advanced high BW and DR DAC we were aware of.It had an 8/6 architecture (8 bit binary, 6 bit segmented) and it could do over 75dB NPR which we saw the next day in a prototype new AWG. Our immediate thought was for use in EW use (jammers) as this was an issue with deployed comms systems like SINCGARs where the IED jammers were creating electronic fratricide.Here's Griffin from long ago!!Best

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 01:46:35 pm
content: Quote from: phenol on April 16, 2025, 06:23:58 amThey could easily use the same packaging factory.

author: hve
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 09:53:38 pm
content: For the AD9122:LCSC has zero in stock max price 14 USDMouser has only a few in stock priced 70-80 USDI wonder, considering how things currently stand, you might be quite vulnerable if you rely on US parts..

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 10:13:06 pm
content: If anyone has the equipment and money, they could decap one and see if there are AD markings on the die...

author: phenol
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2025, 10:26:42 pm
content: LSLC has 0 in stock. I'm guessing the AD factory in the Philippines has run out of production scrap

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 07:58:01 am
content: Quote from: phenol on April 16, 2025, 06:23:58 amPerhaps the Chinese government want a locally produced copy for national security reasons?Niche high end parts like these are often used in military gear, and are sometimes caught up in export restrictions from the US.Would not surprise me at all if the CCP has directed companies like this to copy and produce key high end components locally. So the company doesn't need to do it for profit reasons.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2025, 07:58:58 am
content: Quote from: amyk on April 17, 2025, 10:13:06 pmPerhaps just xraying them might show size or other differences in the die?

author: jwet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 03:11:32 am
content: These chinese copy parts usually take advantage of some Chinese fab with semi advanced processes (~60 nm). The fabs are subsidized by the government as well as the high mask costs. All this development tends to be a generation or two behind the best western companies but this could change. These parts were made with a lot of support from the US government originally for military systems. The current administration has cut back on a lot of this kind of basic research and technology development in the desire to save money (DOGE). The Chinese are pretty transparent about what they're doing. Data converters that handle high resolution 10+ GHz signals have a lot of military applications.The original parts were done at 65 or 90 nm and likely never got shrunk. The modern follow-ons to these parts are done at 28 or 35 nm, pretty pricey nodes but just CMOS. A lot of this stuff had to be done in boutique compound semiconductor processes just a few years ago. One of the funny things that China does is to "patent" their layouts (The US might call this kind of IP protection copyright). This gives them some plausible justification to say they are "improving" these parts though its pretty clear, they are just ripping them off.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 07:00:17 am
content: The AD99xx DDS series is rather old design (say ~20+years), and also relatively simple device (as of today). Making a clone with the same package and pinout could be rather easy these days, provided you have the node (supporting the speed and power consumption) handy (what they apparently do have).Quote from: phenol on April 15, 2025, 09:40:42 am.. and they cloned it quickly, without too much messing with the analog stuff inside..

author: phenol
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 07:52:49 am
content: It's been 3 weeks now since i made an inquiry on their website and all i ever got was 'a sales person will contact you', which never happened.LCSC has still 0 stock.I was eager to mount one on a spare board i have and do a side by side comparison to a genuine AD part, and then try and decap it.

author: jwet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2025, 05:29:12 am
content: Quote from: iMo on May 10, 2025, 07:00:17 amImo- 20+ yrs is a bit of an exaggeration- they came out in 2007 and weren't really available til 2010 when they started yielding. Let's say 15+ years maybe- not splitting hairs but these are pretty sexy parts. They were crazy exotica when they released, yielded something like zero and cost a bunch. Most of the usage was spooks.Packaging is absolutely a commodity- its >95% subcontracted and available to anyone. These parts are pure rip offs of the design, possibly done at a smaller node. They had to do a new layout because they were done in a different fab with different rules etc. If you decapped them, you would probably see the similarities but they wouldn't be identical.ADI really doesn't care that much, they've moved on two generations and recovered their costs making these parts for $1000 early on.

author: mawyatt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2025, 01:33:23 pm
content: Quote from: jwet on May 13, 2025, 05:29:12 amBTW the Keysight Griffin DAC we mentioned (see image) in 4-17 post was in SiGe BiCMOS, and the next generation which was well under development in ~2008 was in small feature pure CMOS. Recall the goal was to achieve over 20GSPS with DR Metrics over 100dB. Later USC under Dr Mike Chen were working on a pure CMOS DAC (along with the Non-Uniform Sampling ADC) with similar goals. We lost touch with these activities as we moved on to another effort and handed over this to another group.What many folks (that aren't part of analog IC design) might not realize is the incredible talent, efforts and creativity that went into these DAC and ADC chips, so hats off to the ADI, TI and KS designersWe can only wonder what's going on "behind the scenes" today in these areasBest