Cheap China ATMega8 investigation: counterfeit or just great value?

I was recently working on an all through-hole project and for prototyping purposes I’d bought myself an ATmega328P microcontroller from Farnell; you know the one, you can find it on every Arduino Uno board. The general idea was that I’d write the firmware with the luxury of 32Kb flash and then when I’d finished I’d downsize into the smallest MCU that it would fit in.


A somewhat battered and bent prototyping 328P

Squeezing the code

When I was done I had 37 classes divided into .h and .cpp files. The compiled firmware size was about 12Kb. The biggest single optimisation that you can make is to move all your method bodies into the header files and mark them with the inline linkage modifier. (Yes, it’s a linkage modifier and nothing else). Only the ISR entry points and any PROGMEM definitions should be left in the .cpp files.

With the entire code path visible to the optimiser it can really flex its muscles and the effect is dramatic. In my case the firmware shrank from 12Kb to 7Kb with avr-gcc 4.9.2. I could now fit it inside an ATmega8.

Sourcing an ATmega8

So off I go to the Farnell website to check out the prices. I always use Farnell. There’s free delivery on orders over £20 and I trust them to have a vetted supply chain. £2.39 + 20% VAT for a single ATmega8-16PU in the DIP package. Seems a lot to me, particularly when you can get a much faster and more capable STM32F0 for about a quid. And I didn’t have enough in my ever-growing shopping basket yet to hit the free delivery threshold.

Now I know that I always say that you have to be nuts to buy ICs direct from China via an auction site so colour me nuts but I had to have a look. ATmega8’s were available from sellers on Ali Express at the ridiculously cheap price of five for US$4.95. Less than a dollar each including shipping.

I just couldn’t resist it so I bought a pack and about two weeks later they arrived. Would they work? I don’t know. The internet is awash with tales of fake ICs from China with the most amusing one being the reel of bricks that the poor guys at Sparkfun bought. And then resold. Hmm, not sure that was a good idea.

A closer look

I wasn’t going to waste too much time testing these. If they didn’t work at the first attempt then they were going to get binned because my time is worth so much more than the difference between a dollar and the Farnell price. Out of curiosity the first thing I did was put one under the microscope to see if I could discern anything wrong with the case markings. Often the fakes have dodgy markings, sometimes even with spelling mistakes!

Here’s what my ATmega328P looks like under a 1:1 macro lens with 67mm of extension tubes.



Click for larger

Here’s what my potentially dodgy ATmega8 looks like under similar magnification. Note that the date codes are similar enough that you’d expect them to be produced using the same process.



Click for larger

Similar, but definitely not produced using the same machine. The etched logo on the 328P is created from two parallel marks and on the 8 it’s produced from 3 parallel marks.

Interestingly, and perhaps significant is that the ‘M’ in the Atmel logo on the 328P has a curve at the top right which matches the actual Atmel logo of a few years back. The ‘M’ on the Atmega8 has no such curve. Also note that the ‘L’ on the Atmega8 has an upward curve at the end that’s not present on the 328P and is not present in the genuine logo. Companies take great care with their logos and these could be the careless slips that identify the fake.

The blinky test

It’s surely the destiny of every ATmega MCU to blink a LED at some time in its life. It’s a good basic test and it will exercise the internal oscillator and one of the timer peripherals for just a few lines of code. This demo relies on the fuses to have been set so that the MCU runs at 8MHz. In my test I used an external crystal for that purpose.

Let’s take a look at the code. Firstly we need to use a timer to tick at millisecond resolution.

MillisecondTimer.h


#pragma once

/*
 * Use Timer0 to count in milliseconds
 */

class MillisecondTimer {

  public:
    static volatile uint32_t _counter;
    static volatile uint8_t _subCounter;

  public:
    static void setup();
    static uint32_t millis();
    static void delay(uint32_t waitfor);
};

/*
 * Setup timer 0. It will tick at 1MHz (CLK/8) and count 0-255 then generate an overflow
 * interrupt. So interrupt frequency = (CLK/8)*256 = 256uS. We will increment the millisecond
 * timer every 4 ticks = 1.024ms. Each interrupt we add 6 to the counter register which has the
 * effect of changing the interrupt frequency to (CLK/8)*250 and that gives us an accurate 1ms counter. 
 */

inline void MillisecondTimer::setup() {

  // set up timer 0

  TCCR0 |= (1 << CS01);
  TIMSK |= (1 << TOIE0);
}

/*
 * Return the timer
 */

inline uint32_t MillisecondTimer::millis() {
  
  uint32_t ms;

  // an 8-bit MCU cannot atomically read/write a 32-bit value so we must
  // disable interrupts while retrieving the value to avoid getting a half-written
  // value if an interrupt gets in while we're reading it

  cli();
  ms=_counter;
  sei();

  return ms;
}

/*
 * Simple delay method
 */

inline void MillisecondTimer::delay(uint32_t waitfor) {

  uint32_t target;

  target=millis()+waitfor;
  while(_counter<target);
}

MillisecondTimer.cpp


#include <avr/io.h>
#include <avr/interrupt.h>
#include "MillisecondTimer.h"

volatile uint32_t MillisecondTimer::_counter=0;
volatile uint8_t MillisecondTimer::_subCounter=0;

/*
 * Timer 0 interrupt handler
 */

ISR(TIMER0_OVF_vect) {

  MillisecondTimer::_subCounter++;

  if((MillisecondTimer::_subCounter & 0x3)==0)
    MillisecondTimer::_counter++;
  
  TCNT0+=6;
}

Now that we’ve got the ability to take timings, I need a simple way to address the GPIO pins. Here’s how I do it efficiently. The templates and the typedefs give me readable code and the pure assembly language implementation ensures that it’s as efficient as possible.

GpioPin.h


#pragma once

/*
 * GPIO ports
 */

struct GPIOB {
  enum {
    Port = 0x18,
    Dir  = 0x17,
    Pin  = 0x16
  };
};

struct GPIOC {
  enum {
    Port = 0x15,
    Dir  = 0x14,
    Pin  = 0x13
  };
};

struct GPIOD {
  enum {
    Port = 0x12,
    Dir  = 0x11,
    Pin  = 0x10
  };
};

/*
 * Base template for all GPIO pins. Provide support for set/reset
 */

template<uint8_t TPort,uint8_t TPin>
struct GpioPin {
 
  static void set() {
    asm volatile(
      "  sbi  %[port],%[pin]  \n\t"
      :: [port] "I" (TPort),
         [pin]  "I" (TPin)
    );
  }

  static void reset() {
    asm volatile(
      "  cbi  %[port],%[pin]  \n\t"
      :: [port] "I" (TPort),
         [pin]  "I" (TPin)
    );
  }

  static void changeTo(bool state) {
    if(state)
      set();
    else
      reset();
  }
};

/*
 * GPIO output, provide support for init
 */

template<class TPort,uint8_t TPin>
struct GpioOutputPin : GpioPin<TPort::Port,TPin> {

  static void setup() {    
    asm volatile(
      "  sbi  %[port],%[pin]  \n\t"
      :: [port] "I" (TPort::Dir),
         [pin]  "I" (TPin)
    );
  }
};

/*
 * GPIO input, provide support for init, read
 */

template<class TPort,uint8_t TPin>
struct GpioInputPin : GpioPin<TPort::Port,TPin> {

  static void setup() {    
    asm volatile(
      "  cbi  %[port],%[pin]  \n\t"
      :: [port] "I" (TPort::Dir),
         [pin]  "I" (TPin)
    );
  }

  static bool read() {
    
    uint8_t r;

    asm volatile(
        "  clr  %[result]       \n\t"       // result = 0
        "  sbic %[port],%[pin]  \n\t"       // skip next if port bit is clear
        "  inc  %[result]       \n\t"       // result = 1
      : [result] "=r" (r)
      : [port]   "I"  (TPort::Pin),
        [pin]    "I"  (TPin)
    );

    return r;
  }
};


/*
 * All pins used in this project
 */

typedef GpioOutputPin<GPIOD,5> GpioLed;

With the plumbing now in place it’s a trivial matter to create the main method that does the blinking.

Blink.cpp


#include <avr/io.h>
#include <avr/interrupt.h>
#include "GpioPin.h"
#include "MillisecondTimer.h"

int main() {

  MillisecondTimer::setup();
  GpioLed::setup();     // PD5 (pin 11)

  sei();

  for(;;) {
    GpioLed::set();
    MillisecondTimer::delay(1000);

    GpioLed::reset();
    MillisecondTimer::delay(1000);
  }

  // not reached
  return 0;
}

The code’s written and now we need a way to build it. I use the scons build system because it’s based on Python which has the side effect of being a useful language. Here’s my SConstruct file. The upload target will use avrdude to upload the hex file to the MCU using a USBASP programmer and the fuse target will set the fuses to use an external crystal.

SConstruct


"""
Usage: scons [upload]

  [upload]
    specify this option to automatically upload to
    using avrdude to a USBASP connected MCU.

  To do a 'clean' use the -c flag
  To do a parallel build use the -jN flag
"""

import os

# source the environment

env=Environment(ENV=os.environ)

# compiler is avr-gcc

env.Replace(CC="avr-gcc")
env.Replace(CXX="avr-g++")
env.Replace(PROGSUFFIX=".elf")

# set up our options

env.Replace(CXXFLAGS=["-mmcu=atmega8",
                      "-Os",
                      "-g",
                      "-DF_CPU=8000000",
                      "-std=c++11",
                      "-Wall",
                      "-Werror",
                      "-Wextra",
                      "-pedantic-errors",
                      "-fno-rtti",
                      "-ffunction-sections",
                      "-fdata-sections",
                      "-fno-exceptions"])

env.Replace(LINKFLAGS=["-Wl,-Map,blink.map",
                       "-mrelax",
                       "-g",
                       "-Wl,--gc-sections",
                       "-mmcu=atmega8"])

# compile source code to .elf binary

elf=env.Program("blink",[Glob("*.cpp")])
Decider('timestamp-newer')

# convert elf to hex flashable image

env.Command("blink.hex",elf,"avr-objcopy -j .text -j .data -O ihex $SOURCE $TARGET")

# calculate size and generate assembly source

env.Command("blink.siz",elf,"avr-size $SOURCE | tee $TARGET")
env.Command("blink.lst",elf,"avr-objdump -S $SOURCE > $TARGET")

# upload target uses avrdude

flash_cmd="avrdude -c usbasp -p m8 -e -U flash:w:blink.hex"

# internal oscillator
#fuse_cmd="avrdude -c usbasp -p m8 -e -U lfuse:w:0xe4:m -U hfuse:w:0xd9:m"

# external crystal
fuse_cmd="avrdude -c usbasp -p m8 -e -U lfuse:w:0xff:m -U hfuse:w:0xd9:m"

upload=env.Alias("upload","blink.hex",flash_cmd)
fuse=env.Alias("fuse","blink.hex",fuse_cmd)

AlwaysBuild([upload,fuse])

The code upload was successful and it immediately started blinking at 1Hz, just as designed.


It’s alive!

This simple demo shows that the internal oscillator, the external crystal interface, GPIO port D, the internal memories and the timer0 peripheral are all working as they should.

Watch the video

I distilled all of the above into a video that you can watch if you’d like to see me checking out these ICs.

Click here to watch the video at the youtube website. You’ll get a better quality experience if you do that.

It seems to work…

I can’t find anything wrong with it. Why is it so cheap? I don’t know. Perhaps they’re just overstock from someone’s bigger order. Perhaps a batch was rejected by QC for some unknown reason that ordinary use at room temperature will never discover. As far as I’m concerned they’re good to use and I got a bargain. For once.

If you’d like to share your experience, good or bad, with cheap ICs from China then do please leave a comment below or drop by the forum and post your thoughts.

  • salsaman

    Mouser, Digikey and Newark (Farnell in the US) all show the same lowest price for a DIP ATmega8: $1.95 for 1000 or more. Their markup is very small on large quantities. Do you think a small vendor could offer *any* quantity of them for half that price?

    Many popular IC’s can be had for impossibly low prices from China, especially ones that are expensive in large quantities direct from the manufacturer. Emphasis on *impossibly* since they’re actually clones that operate differently internally but function more or less the same if you’re not operating them near near limits.

  • Philipp K

    The Atmega8 is very old and cheaper 1$ in Single Buy.. Its a good and cheap choice for Flashsizes <8kb.

  • August

    hey im about to buy some of these , is the memory map the same as the original ? i program in assembley so that would be usefull information , cheers

  • dword1511

    The “L”s in the Atmel logo are different…

    • Augusto Imperatore

      Hi to all friends!
      Yes and also number 4 is completely different.
      My personal opinion is that they are clones very similar to the original one.
      I have found many sellers in eBay that ship faked chip or clones.
      For example, you can see a similar history for the Microchip PIC12F629, some high power mosfet as IRFP9540 and some expensive high precision, low noise OpAmp.
      About the PIC12F629 I am sure that they are clones because the original one work as expected and explained in the datasheet instead their clone work different with some istructions. I have found a way to solve the problem but at the end you can use these chips for not critical circuits only.
      And also the price is impossible. You can see also the price in the Microchip website for the maximum quantity.
      Is not possible that a little shop sell to an half price of the lower price that exist for less of 10 microcontrollers.
      If you search “counterfeit” in Google and Youtube you can found many discussions related to this problem.
      This is a big problem for any chip maker.
      Thank you for this post.
      I have found it very interesting and useful to avoid other clones…
      Sorry if my english is not perfect.

  • Rando

    Hi Andy,

    You’re native *.cpp, and *.h progamming on the Arduino platform, feels very sophisticated. Do you have any projects posted/available where you share your approach? I’d love to see the code you squeezed into the Chinese ATmega 8a, as an example.

    Thanks for posting!

    • Hi Rando, this project uses the ATmega8L and of course the source code is freely available on github

      • Rando

        Andy,

        Wow! Awesome right up. I was especially interested in your statement.

        “I prototyped the firmware build with the ATmega328P MCU that you can
        find in the Arduino Uno and when I’d more-or-less finished the code size
        was 12 or 13K. After moving the entire implementation from an old-style
        .cpp/.h structure to inline
        header-only methods the gcc 4.9.2 optimizer was able to really grasp
        the nettle and bring the image down to about 7.5Kb, and that’s with
        using expensive floating point operations for the PID algorithm”

        That’s a lot of bang for the buck for a lowly 8k ATmega 8! I have a couple of questions:

        1.) Did you mine the Arduino libraries for these functions, or roll your own?

        2.) I’m wondering if that approach is available to optimize some of the code base available in the Arduino libraries? It would seems that rather than curse the deficiency in the Arduino IDE and tool-set, you’ve endeavored to “light a candle” by providing viable alternatives (Eclipse IDE, native library linkage for specific AVR chips, etc.)

        Any way the C++ skills reflected in you ARM work, seem to be well and uniquely applied to the AVR/Arduino.

        R.

        • Hi Rando, I don’t use anything in the Arduino libraries. They may have improved but last time I looked they weren’t written in a particularly optimal way and the 8 bit AVR’s are just so simple it’s no bother to work directly with the registers when you need to.

          If I remember correctly the Arduino IDE concatenates all your sources and the library source files (?) together before feeding one big uber-file to the compiler. This achieves the same end result as what I do in that the optimiser gets to see the whole program and can work to its full potential.

  • Vlad

    >With the entire code path visible to the optimiser it can really flex its muscles and the effect is dramatic

    You don’t need to make everything inline; in order to remove unused functions you can use link time optimization (-flto). As for removing function call overhead, GCC will inline some functions at higher optimization levels like -O3.

  • Augusto Imperatore

    About 328 you can see also there:

    https://www.sparkfun.com/news/364

  • JaitcH

    The company I work for designs and manufactures military equipment for non-aligned countries. Many ICs have pin-outs that seem designed by a evil scientist. Take the ever-popular 555. Most circuit have pins 4 and 8 as well 2 and 6 joined externally. To simplify PCB designs we have a Chinese company join such pins together internally so reducing the pin count by two.

    We also have them make simple custom where disparate circuit chips are mounted within the same IC case. We are far bring the pioneers in this, I remember MDS (Mohawk Data Sciences) having custom chips where the power pins where repositioned back in the Sixties.

    Whilst most of our products are single-use (they explode when used) it is essential that their reliability is high. Presently we are consuming over 3-million of our customised chips annually and the failure rate is extremely low.

  • Harry Magooslum

    I lived in Asia (Taiwan) for a while and you find out about things like the “4th shift” in which things get made during an imaginary work shift outside of the “day”, “night”, or “graveyard” shifts. And parts “fall off” the assembly line and disappear only to be found on AliExpress and elsewhere. And there are some shops that fabricate nothing but counterfeit chips from artwork and process details “borrowed” from the main factory. Basically, anything goes in Asia.
    Enjoy the chips while this situation exists. Who knows, you might wake up and find out that it was all just a dream… I mean insanely inexpensive parts, free dev tools, and processors running at microwave frequencies. What were you taking before you passed out?! 😉

  • Wei Shi

    I used to work on a motor controller. The heart of the controller was a ATMega48. We were approached by a Chinese company who produce dirt cheap unlicensed ATMega48 copy ($0.3). Their chips are unmarked but pin by pin compatible with ATMega48. We had some sample and they indeed works and in some edge test case even beating the original ATMega48 by a margin. Those ICs was laterly used on our controllers sold in Chinese market only since export is not possible.

  • Ken Fay

    All of the Atmel micro processor I have bought on eBay have been blacktopped. (original information sanded off black coating applied and new information laser etched on the chip) Most of the chips have worked, but they aren’t what they appear to be. Altered specifications, date codes, who knows ? They are cheap for some reason. Some chips I purchased did not have the “factory default” fuse settings set. I think those chips were used. If you are buying them for hobby projects that might be fine. If you buy from Farnell or Digikey you will pay more, but you will get new unaltered chips.

    • Hi Ken, that’s interesting. I’d never heard of that practice of remarking them before.

  • Pankaj Doharey

    They are most probably reverse engineered MCU china has a ton of homegrown MCU that they use for their own purposes and some are even clones. But there is no reason why counterfeit MCU cannot work. The only problem is that it does not honour Copyright, but i firmly believe that there is no need for copyright on hardware. And it is easier to reverse engineer hardware than software. In early days Cyrix use to reverse engineer Intel processors and use to make designs faster than Intel, cheaper than Intel and equally compatible than intel.

  • jjeerre

    They may work at room temperature, but they may not work at extreme temperature (e.g. 85C, -40C, etc)