Michael Holley wrote:
I was an engineer at Data I/O from 1981 to 1997 and
made numerous visits to
semiconductor companies. The semiconductor companies had a good business
reason for limiting access to the programming algorithms. The customers
expected the programmed PROMs to work over the entire temperature and
voltage range for the life of their products. They also expected a minimal
number of chips that failed programming. To achieve this, the semiconductor
companies would work with leading PROM programmer companies so they could
certify the programmer met there specs. If a customer programmed part with
one of these devices, the parts should meet all the specs and the
semiconductor would stand behind them.
Data I/O would publish a "Wall Chart" listing the thousands of different
parts their programmers would handle and what revision of software and
hardware was needed. Sometimes the programming algorithm would change after
the PROM was released. Some process change would require a longer pulse
width or a voltage change. I remember one time National Semiconductor had
several production lots of bipolar PROMs that had a poor yield with the
current algorithm. National asked the leading programmer companies to rush
an update to customers. National could do this with 4 or 5 programmer
companies, it couldn't happen with an update to a datasheet and expect every
programmer to be updated.
Michael Holley
Thanks Good that the semiconductor Manufacturers published the Algorithms
to write to their RAMs ... :-)
Sorry, but the above is Nonsense in my eyes.
If they publish the datasheets, thy could inform companies that produced
the programmers anyways to reach the end users.
Ther isn't any benefit when they hold the algorithms secret.
Regards,
Holm
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