They certainly do not have the white print I was expecting. However, the printing does look fairly sharp. I have noticed that pretty much all the IC's I've ordered new in the past 10 years have had brownish printing rather than white, and I've ordered hundreds, if not thousands, of IC's. I don't understand the reason for the colour transition.

It also looks like your SRAM has some raised markings on the bottom circles. My Chinese SRAMs don't have these. Also, the Chinese knock-off SRAM and EEPROM's often have some shiny streaks on them. Your chips do not appear to have this. I even have some Chinese EEPROM chips which have odd looking font.

In short, I don't know if your SRAM is counterfeit. What I do not like is the brown/yellowish wording because it doesn't look original to the motherboard. The goal moving forward may be to source used old chips or new old stock chips to get that white lettering.

amadeus777999 wrote:

The IDT parts are fakes too - maybe a long time ago there were authentic ones to buy.

Did you buy these through Mouser or EBay?

BloodyCactus: He told me that they were ordered from Mouser. Do the IDT 32kx8 parts you ordered from Mouser have this brownish lettering as well?

I couldnt find em last time I looked. ugh. let me dig around again. I'm going to buy some as well. I need some 2k 12ns for another project so already getting some idt srams.. whats a couple more!

I feel sick thinking MORE fakes are in tier 1 supply chain stores I trust 🙁 let me dig around for my other srams again. ugh^2

They were ordered via Mouser - 25 pieces since shipping cost(28 Euros) is eliminated of you reach 50 Euros of goods. Customs was a salty 18 Euros, but at least one can buy as a private person instead of a registered company.

I will definitely write to Mouser and see if what kind of "mousings" they'll return.

IF the srams run with 50mhz fsb and the tightest settings then they are on equal footing with the authentic ones... we'll see. The print definitely looks off and can't in any way or form be officially connected to IDT.

The attached images seem to feature authentic chips(different package) and their print is totally different in style.

got em. uploading. these are one of the last batches I had. they worked for me, but thats not so say I was pushing them at 12ns! so... shrug.

datecode week 25, 2013..

amadeus, it will help your argument with Mouser if you can provide a photo of the same 32kx8 IDT SRAM with white printing, presumably from the late 90's or early 2000's. It would be interesting to see if they have any printing on the bottom as well. I think I have some original IDT SRAM, but not sure if it is 32kx8.

At least the datecodes seem to be increasing in value. Seems like a lot of those 128kx8 chips had the same datecode for the longest time.

Does HK = Hong Kong? What is CK? CK is the country code for the Cook Islands.

@Cactus - ooops, these seem awfully familiar... if they're really 12ns capable you have to test them in a good 486 board at 60mhz fsb(+best settings). They won't really work at that speed but you should be able to pull of a clean boot and maybe enter speedsys.

@feipoa - I have no idea what the abbreviations mean but I will purchase a few original ones on ebay and then write to mouser. Albeit they'll most likely take them back as they can't change the "game".... just play along and sell some "greyzone parts".

It would be interesting to see if the whole industry just shifted to these chinese made vinegar clones... I will buy some 166mhz capable pipelined burst chips from Cypress(which should be a bit newer) and see if these carry that strange markings too.

Here's a photo I took of some IDT 32kx8 SRAM from my stash. Observe the white/grey lettering and the markings on the bottom.

feipoa wrote:

Here's a photo I took of some IDT 32kx8 SRAM from my stash. Observe the white/grey lettering and the markings on the bottom.

Thanks.
Alliance srams look similar but the UMC ones I have do, for example, not have a bottom print.

The first batch I ever ordered from China also had a white bottom print, so I guess they just relabeled some old srams while the other chips seem to have been newly manufactured and are devoid of any markings.

Excuse my necro again, but I was looking around on ebay for some 32kx8 SRAM and I stumbled across those (not affiliated in anyway):

https://www.ebay.de/itm/5-PCS-W24257AK-12-DIP … iMAAOSw8lBTovoi

At first glance they look like they could be genuine (white lettering, date code from 98 if I understand it correctly), what do you guys think?

I think what you get will not look like what is in the photo. This has been my experience anyway.

The offer you posted is a scam - any sram in sdip format of size 32K and above with a latency of less than 15ns sold on ebay or any other site is most likely fake... double that for chinese scammers.

I only was able to buy 5 12ns 32K x 8 UMC based srams once from kessler-electronic and cost was 6€ per piece. This was the last time I saw genuine 12ns chips on a site with a capacity bigger than 16K.

128kx8b 10ns chips I recently bought on ebay. Brown print as mentioned by others. Bought 20 of them with the expectation that some may be DOA. Didn't get around to testing them yet but I hope to get one working set, maybe 2, out of the 20.

My 10% failure rate was on those with datecode 31, 2004. Seems like the more recent batch I ordered from a year or two ago didn't have any failures. Not sure what the datecode as though.

Today I received these chips which I bought from a german ebay seller which he claims are NOS from a defunct audio company. I don't know if I believe the NOS part because at least some of them look like the have been inserted and pulled before, but at 30 working out of 30 and just about 1.60€ per piece I won't complain. Datecode is from '97.

Again, no affiliation to the seller what so ever, just sharing if anybody is on the search too and doesn't feel like getting scammed by some Chinese ebay seller. "UM61256AK-12 = High Speed CMOS SRAM = 32k x 8 = 12ns !! = SDIP28"

Wowah, those are nice! Is it from this link?, https://www.ebay.de/itm/5-PCS-W24257AK-12-DIP … =item56878832e7

If so, I have some concerns. 1) The item shown in the eBay photo are for W24257AK-12. 2) Items ships from China, not Germany. Might not get when you received.

This is what I bought:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/30-Stk-UM61256AK-12-H … ywAAOSwu4BVzeLW

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. Probably only chips within Europe.

Fantastic grab Eleanor!

The seller does not even ship to where I reside so I shot him a message. Should he be willing to sell, then I can send you some chips Feipoa.