Chinese clones attack STM32 microcontrollers - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Gabri74
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 08:48:18 am
content: Here they come....https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/chinese-clones-attack-stm32-microcontrollers/

author: Gabri74
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 08:50:56 am
content: Ohhhh man, they even cloned the crappy ST product selector ....http://www.gigadevice.com/product-category/1.html?locale=en_US

author: Gabri74
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:04:26 am
content: Downloaded 'firmware' and USB libraries from this link:http://www.gigadevice.com/product-downloadmcu.html?locale=en_USThey are a complete ripoff of ST LibrariesBasically they only removed the copyright headers and slightly changed some functions.How can this be possible even in China ?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:14:58 am
content: That reminded me of this story from a year backhttps://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/3-arduino-possible-holly-molly-chinese-avr-clones-are-coming-meet-lgt8f88a-mavr-core-processor/

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 am
content: Quote from: Gabri74 on November 11, 2015, 09:04:26 amYou pay some money, you get whatever you want, unfettered by government regulation. That in essence is the capitalist principle, kind of ironic that the Chinese enthusiastically embrace this principle more than we doIt's not clear these are illegal clones, obviously copying software and removing copyright headers is illegal in most countries, so I wouldn't hold high hopes that the silicon design is clean.Once I asked ST why they have such silly licensing on their "free" software, they explained it was to prevent clones. Quite obviously, people who are willing to clone don't care about the legalese, so that idea is never going to work and just makes it awkward for people who want to use genuine ST devices. I don't believe for a second that ST are licensing their designs to GigaDevices.The final irony : even the Olimex guy complaining about Chinese rip-offs buys direct from China. It's all about the money. They are not "forced to" buy there, they choose to do so. If you have moral objections to rip-offs, don't feed the dragon.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 01:37:23 pm
content: QuoteReally?

author: Gabri74
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 02:36:53 pm
content: STM3II

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 05:59:01 pm
content: I wonder.. is the ARM Cortex m3 core itself licensed offically.. or also a "cloned instructionset"?

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 05:59:30 pm
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 amdepends on your definition of forced, if the choice is between buying in China, or close the company because buying it elsewhere makes the end product is too expensive to be sell-able, then it isn't really a choice

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 06:04:49 pm
content: Quote from: hans on November 11, 2015, 05:59:01 pmyou can't patent an instructionset so in principle there is nothing wrong with making a cpu that runs ARM code (ala. AMD/Intel x86),but, atleast for the old ARM7 it was impossible to make fully compatible cpu without violating ARM patents on afair interrupt handling.There was atleast one company that tried and was killing by ARM

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 06:40:38 pm
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 amYeah, fuck that guy. He doesn't have the volume to get lower prices, so he looks to China. What happens when Olimex stuff is cloned?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 07:29:39 pm
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 amQuote

author: janengelbrecht
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:21:57 pm
content: Hmm i really thought that international trade aggrements could somehow lead to a common fond so manufactures who discover that their patents are compromissed could get their legal fees payd by some common funds payed my member states and their companies. But obviously the politicians havent been that smart yet. Of course it should be so if someone is found guilty its is up to his country to take action and if they dont there ought to be a rule that said that this country was not allowed to do trade with any other country in the world anymore.... but no such an aggrement exist...its pure Wild West out thereWhat is the meaning with trade aggrements that doesnt work

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:32:33 pm
content: WTO actions are very expensive and likely require a commitment on the part of the affected countries' governments to pursue.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 pm
content: Apart from stealing the software (par for the course in China), they are not doing anything wrong. Anyone can make a clone of any peripheral set they like.Russians are making clones of old Altera FPGAs. And yes, they are suggesting you use original Altera software and programmers

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 10:00:46 pm
content: Quote from: helius on November 11, 2015, 09:32:33 pmEasy way out...The clone manufacturers first response to a ruling will be 'we promise' to stop manufacturing clone product. Given 90 days by trade ruling to comply. (We don't want to destroy livelihoods, and 2 million parts already in distribution channel...!)Key point:Specific high-tech components only have a lifespan of a couple of years between major revisions anyway, and the original action took over 12 months to frame in legalese, and pass through the various governments / parties...Clone manufacturer starts tooling up for rev.2, and takes 120 days to shutdown the rev.1 distribution (ahh sorry, hard to get new supply chain running... very sorry). Excess stock is recalled and dumped to untraceable Shenzen market traders (at cost - no loss). These appear in your pet collar trinkets, and third tier unbranded junk.Two months later, the manufacturers have complied with the trade ruling, and created a newer, more profitable channel with rev.2 for the next 18 months.P.S. This adds to the sell price of the OEM product - so they have any chance of making any return within the ramp-up period.Governments and first-world society are suckers for a story.

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 10:08:39 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on November 11, 2015, 09:44:53 pmwell it's totally wrong ... i mean taking for free the hard work of hundred of engineers and the financial risk to develop a chip or whatever product and not even change the name, and sell it on the market as a replacement for the original product is totally fucked up way to make money ...if there is a mechanism that force component to move to public domain after a number of years than okay, but the way Chinese are doing thing is totally irrespectful for the hard work of lot of pplthis will discourage company to develop furtherand will discourage them to do open source software and hardware as well.What i hate the most about all this is that development company encourage Chinese by "feeding the dragon" , PCB, components are imported from china and this is only killing domestic business.

author: richardman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 10:31:59 pm
content: Our first PCB products were manufactured in China. Our second/third were made in US and Korea. If hobbyists and product makers insist on the lowest cost regardless of the source, i.e. the Walmart model, and coupled that with a country not bound by international laws, this is what will and does happen.The only solution is for the state governments from US and EU et al to put pressure to effect real changes.

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 11:19:45 pm
content: Quote from: hamdi.tn on November 11, 2015, 10:08:39 pmWestern companies do that all the time, they are just more subtle about it - use a different name and box, and it looks like a unique product. Companies do teardowns, analyse all the design and BOM, and see what can be copied. You can pay companies to give you a report.I know several cases in the West where companies have completely ripped off other's products.Anyway, it's called "competition", everyone tries to undercut each other, which is apparently what all Western governments are in favor of. Unless it's some people with a different color skin, then it's "unfair".

author: autobot
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2015, 11:46:11 pm
content: Looking in octopart for a random ST part , i see there's a Chinese AUTHORIZED distributor , selling at half the price:https://octopart.com/search?q=STM32F&start=0#/search/modals/allPrices/0e98c7ea3b11d15fSo i assume this a legal part, right ?

author: all_repair
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 04:47:58 am
content: Is it a clone, or a balant exact copying? Cloning is not new at all in this industry. We have AMD cloning Intel for ages.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 04:53:03 am
content: It is a clean re-implementation. There are some bugs introduced and some are actually fixed. And that's why I'm saying that it is OK. But copying software as is in not OK.In a modern world making an MCU is just half the battle, vendors have to provide decent software support and short-circuiting that second half by using stolen software is a bad practice.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 04:57:46 am
content: Quote from: all_repair on November 12, 2015, 04:47:58 amAMD have never really cloned Intel devices. There was a time when they made second source versions of Intel parts, in cooperation with Intel. That doesn't really count as cloning. Later they started making their own original designs, which execute the same instruction set as an Intel device, and have all the necessary Intel patents related to that fully licenced. These look nothing like the Intel parts, so clone is not an appropriate term.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 04:59:17 am
content: Quote from: coppice on November 12, 2015, 04:57:46 amAnd AMD was first with 64-bit version as well. Not that it helped them a whole lot.

author: baoshi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 06:40:17 am
content: GigaDevice has a proper license for the ARM core. It looks to me a reimplementation of ST peripherals to me.

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 07:38:53 am
content: Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on November 11, 2015, 11:19:45 pmit's always unfair no matter what color skin they have, and i don't think western governments are in favor for that , since all western country have a set of law to protect IP and copyright and patented design.now am not saying that western company are not doing that either, but it's totally less obvious to detect, and copying a part of a design is not as harmful for the original company as selling the copy as a direct replacement.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 09:19:31 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on November 11, 2015, 06:40:38 pmNothing, becauseit's open-source.But I don't see anything wrong with this either, if they have core (and probably some peripherals) license from ARM and they aren't selling them as actual ST parts. ST can't copyright register addresses and pinouts. Would you also complain about ST (or the dozen others) making "clones" of the 7805 from National?

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 09:34:03 am
content: after 2 minutes research i found this linkhttp://www.esa.int/About_Us/Law_at_ESA/Intellectual_Property_Rights/About_semiconductor_productsapparently like pharmaceutical industry, design right in electronic industry expire too after 10 years.That explain for me why everyone can produce same old chip like 78xx regulator or all the old TTL and CMOS logic chips.the ST32F103 is a mature product ,am not sure when it was available for sell the first time, if it's beyond 10 years well the Chinese can produce no problem at all.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 09:41:38 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on November 11, 2015, 06:40:38 pmNot sure if you are serious, if he's looking for genuine parts he's well within his rights to look anywhere he likes. Free market 101.If anyone is at fault there it's a greedy and inefficient western supply chain. Ironically western distributors may gain from this as manufacturers like Olimex will have doubts about the China supply chain.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 09:46:15 am
content: Quote from: bookaboo on November 12, 2015, 09:41:38 amI don't think so. Apparently those chips were on the market for quite some time now and there are no signs of repackaging them as genuine STM parts.And given all the differences between the devices, it would be trivial to realize that device is fake/remarked.I don't think they are doing anything wrong on the HW side. In fact, I applaud them. There is no reason to multiply the number of parts with incompatible peripherals.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2015, 10:15:01 am
content: Quote from: hamdi.tn on November 12, 2015, 09:34:03 amActually that doesn't explain why so many people make things like the 78xx and TTL logic. In those days manufacturers sought out other manufacturers to make true second sources of their parts. Many industries, like telecoms and defence, refused to use anything that was not available from a true second source. This continued up to around 1990, when practices changed. When Philips/Signetics, ST and Motorola were all making 68000 devices they actually ran joint events to promote new devices. AMD originally second sourced 8086s, because Intel needed them to do so.