Re: 264 Series and their chips

Hi Gerrit,


Welcome to the list!

On 2011-08-09 18:47, Gerrit Heitsch wrote:

> Could it be possible that the CPU and TED of the 264 series were
> Commodore's first attempt at HMOS-I and later HMOS-II and they didn't
> have the process down at the beginning? If that's true, 8501 and 8360
> produced later should be less prone to failure. I know that both were
> still made in 1986 and later. Then, a 8501R4 made 4986 is in my
> collection, so there were some changes to the CPU later on.

I've been using a 8501, datecode 1190 ever since the original 8501 of my
C16 died (...almost 20 years by now). This chip is obviously a very late
one (last production run?... already with CSG label + C= logo). Most
faulty 8501s I've ever seen were indeed early pieces (1984). Can't speak
of later production runs (rarely seen one, either working or defective)
and TEDs (couldn't see nearly as many dead 8360s as 8501s).

At least my original 8501 obviously gave up the run; as its counterpart
TED is a late 1986 piece, I'm assuming it must have also been
manufactured in 1986. (Don't know for sure, I don't have that chip
anymore, unfortunately.)

> Also... were there ever any 8360 in Ceramic package seen in the wild?
> Reason is I have a TED in Ceramic, it works but whoever had it before me
> glued a heatsink on and didn't write the markings onto the bottom. The
> type of heatsink used suggests it was done at Commodore. Could it be a
> 7360?

I've only ever seen 7360 prototypes in ceramic packaging. So yes, I'd
assume it's an early 7360 (if not a 7360 prototype or development chip).
...Has anyone ever seen a ceramic 8360?...

> Another thing I was wondering about is whether the 8500, the 8501 and
> the 8502 are the same die inside with just different bonding. The
> pinouts suggest the possibility. Same for the 8501R4 since it was made
> after the 264 series died.

Not sure (never seen die photos of these newer models), but some bits of
the onboard CPU I/O port are unimplemented in these three CPUs, and the
bit positions (ie. exactly which bits are unimplemented) don't match -
I'm assuming they'd have at least had to customize the chips before
packaging, which looks unlikely.

> Finally, if anyone here has a defective TED and is willing to donate it,
> contact the folks at http://visual6502.org they are looking for one to
> depackage and take high resolution photographs of the die.

I've got a couple of them for sure :-) (even more 8501s, but, err... :-D
), no problem if they're really looking for some...

>  Gerrit


Levente

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