Is aliexpress safe to buy these chips?

[AtariNostalgia]

I mean will they be fake?

I need one 74LS04 (7 +7 PIN)

and a TMS9900NL (32 +32 PIN)

Thanks.

[Hans23]

I have bought several TMS9900NL and TMS9901 on Aliexpress and they worked fine.  Always test your chips as soon as you receive them so that you can get a refund if they don't work.

[AtariNostalgia]

Thanks. Could you tell me who you bought it from in aliexpress?

I have only ordered 1 time from aliexpress years ago and it was not computer related, so I don't know the site that well.

[Hans23]

I bought the TMS9900 from Shop5037076, the TMS9901 from InShop Chip.

[AtariNostalgia]

Thanks!

[+FarmerPotato]

3 hours ago, AtariNostalgia said:

Thanks. Could you tell me who you bought it from in aliexpress?

I have only ordered 1 time from aliexpress years ago and it was not computer related, so I don't know the site that well.

I’ve gotten good chips from polida2008. starting with 99105 and 9995. 
 

He was stung by fake 2612’s, which appeared in a video about finding fake chips... polida2008 handled it and now has good 2612s. They stopped being cheap. Points for that. 
 

-sorry, polida2008 was eBay. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by FarmerPotato

[globeron]

Here is more info. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/315554-how-to-see-if-a-chip-is-for-pal-or-ntsc-vdp-tms9929an-tms9918an-ntscpal-50hz60hz/

 

[atrax27407]

Most of the ships from Chinese suppliers are counterfeit. That being said, Funkward Tech, JK Parts, Polida2008, and some others, although they are counterfeit, are usually fully functional. If you want genuine chips, Hodge16 (Unicorn Electronics) has a lot of them. 

[Hans23]

1 hour ago, atrax27407 said:

Most of the ships from Chinese suppliers are counterfeit.

This does not match my experience.  Most chips that I bought from various suppliers are genuine parts.  When it comes to older types, they are usually salvaged from old equipment and I encountered batches in which one or two of chips of a lot did not work, most likely because they were damaged in the extraction process.  I have also heard of mass remarkings, but it seems that this practice is only economical for higher-priced parts, for example to sell a slower CPU as being a faster one.

 

The most important advice when buying vintage chips from chinese suppliers is to test them as soon as they arrive in order to get refunded for those that do not work.

[atrax27407]

If you read the chip ID with an eprommer, you will find that as many as 75% of the chips are counterfeit (i.e., the ID doesn't verify).

Edited June 23, 2021 by atrax27407

[Bratwurst]

6 minutes ago, atrax27407 said:

If you read the chip ID with an eprommer, you will find that as many as 75% of the chips are counterfeit (i.e., the ID doesn't verify).

Not to say that there aren't IC counterfeits out there, there is certainly a lot going around throughout the Asian continent, but my experience across many different eprom programmer/readers, pro brands like Needhams and Batronix, is that the chip ID function is a crapshoot and not reliable.

 

It's obvious when a chip is a pull from the wear/solder remnant on the pins, and there is an entire industry dedicated to electronic salvage in China.

[atrax27407]

And there is also an entire industry dedicated to "midnight runs" of chips, chips that were pulled from the production line before the JEDEC code was applied, and chips from manufacturers other than the one printed on the chip. I have not had any problem with chips verifying from a US source that stocks verifiable genuine chips such as Unicorn Electronics.

JEDEC Mfg ID 2017.pdf