Reverse engineering ASIC into FPGA

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit

Eric Smith wrote:

Just for reference, here is a list of when copyrights run out in various situations. Corrections/comments welcome.

************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Published before 1923 PROTECTED FROM: In public domain TERM: None ************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Published from 1923 - 63 PROTECTED FROM: When published with notice [3] TERM: 28 years + could be renewed for 47 years, now extended by 20 years for a total renewal of 67 years. If not so renewed, now in public domain ************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Published from 1964 - 77 PROTECTED FROM: When published with notice 28 years for first term; TERM: now automatic extension of 67 years for second term ************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Created before 1-1-78 but not published PROTECTED FROM: 1-1-78 (Effective date of 1976 Copyright Act) TERM: Life + 70 years or 12-31-2002, whichever is greater ************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Created before 1-1-78 but published between then and 12-31-2002 PROTECTED FROM: 1-1-78, (Effective date of 1976 Copyright Act) TERM: Life + 70 years or 12-31-2047 whichever is greater ************************************************** DATE OF WORK: Created 1-1-78 or after PROTECTED FROM: When work is fixed in tangible medium of expression TERM: Life + 70 years [1] (or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation [2] **************************************************

Notes: [1] Term of joint works is measured by life of the longest-lived author. [2] Works for hire, anonymous and pseudonymous works also have this term. 17 U.S.C. § 302(c). [3] Under the 1909 Act, works published without notice went into the public domain upon publication. Works published without notice between 1-1-78 and 3-1-89, effective date of the Berne Convention Implementation Act, retained copyright only if, e.g., registration was made within five years. 17 U.S.C. § 405. Source: Tom Field / Lolly Gasaway.

--
Guy Macon

IANAL, but I believe that requirement for copyright notice applied to published works then. But I don't know whether PLA code was considered an expression that was copyrightable then or that distributing IC constituted publication even. You probably need a real IP lawyer to answer that. But since you're incurring the liablity here, it's your call.

If you were considering putting this stuff under an opensource license it might be more problematic since you would not be the original author by your own admission. You'd probably want to document why you think the work is in the public domain.

--
Joe Seigh

Hey Robert, Just a quick reminder that not everyone in this newsgroup is an American. I'm led to believe that some of the contributors here actually live in foreign countries. Apparently, these godforsaken places have their own laws, and even the FEDERAL government has no jurisdiction. Crazy or what! Cheers, Syms. p.s. One of these far off places is called the UK, or something like that. It seems copyright there is similar to copyright in the US. I imagine the buggers copied the law from the US.

This seems to have emerged from another newsgroup so the context of the original question is not clear. However, I think that those who need to perform reverse engineering of anything (and I have done more than my fair share of it - by neccessity) should be on clear ground as far as IP issues are concerned.

My own reverse engineering work was always for a client who owned the equipment and IP rights but had lost the documentation for systems that needed to be modified. If you are doing it for reasons other than that then the wicket is getting very sticky.

--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett ....................
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy .....
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095
Going Forth Safely ....EBA. http://www.electric-boat-association.org.uk/********************************************************************

The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act is not relevant; the masks could be covered as works of art. As far as age goes, you are correct - if an item is old enough, then notice would be needed. Without registration, collection of statutory damages would be rather difficult as one would have to prove ownership and priority. Registration is equivalent to "overkill" proof.

So why not look at what they do, the functionality and re-create it with new parts? That way you avoid legal problems.

Regards, Pieter

vs.

photomicrographs, at

I think maybe IDC in Arizona, (Phoenix), and MOSAID used to do a lot of this delayering and taking picture stuff. Else, anybody that is in the Failure Analysis business for Semiconductors. Lucky for you these are from a vintage that makes it conceivable to me. Doing what the chinese probably did to that crypto equipment on something modern is way beyond my scope.

del

Regarding the guy who read the antique calculator ROMs in metal cans, could he not have simply read them out by whatever method the CPU did?

In message , Delbert Cecchi writes

Any references to the story?

--
Clint Sharp

,

beyond

I was referring to the US Electronic Intelligence or something plane that got kidnapped out of international airspace near china and forced to land. Got the crew back in a while. As I recall we got the airframe back in boxes. It was rumored the crew didn't have enough time to destroy all. Probably within last 10 or so years. Google should turn it up. EC137 may have been the aircraft type.

I don't know what happened to the electronics but I can guess.

del cecchi

A Chinese F-8 and a US EP-3 collided during an intercept; the F-8 was lost and the EP-3 performed an emergency landing at Hainan airfield. A fairly standard c*ck-up between great powers.

Kelly

And I'm certain that it wasn't deliberate just to hand bogus equipment to the Chinese. (Excuse me, somebody's knocking on my door.)

--
#include 
 _
Kevin D Quitt  USA 91387-4454         96.37% of all statistics are made up
  Per the FCA, this address may not be added to any commercial mail list

Yes, that would have been an option, but the protocol for reading these ROMs is more than just supplying an address and grabbing the data---the ROMs maintain internal state that an external reader would have to model, and multiple ROMs sit on the same serial bus. They're really more like coprocessors than ROMs.

Cheers, Peter Monta

the theme for this episode of Jag:

though the ending is a bit different ;)

-Lasse