Reverse engineering of an Altera PLD ?

[walker1]

This was "Could a PLL do the job ?"

We have now found out that the pulses are generated in a Altera 7064 PLD. (44 pin)

We use Altera ourselves and should have the software, but can you reverse engineer such a thing ?
That is, read whatever is in the chip and get the state lines or what ever out so they can be modified ?

We can always hope the security bit is not set

 

[nbucska]

It may be simpler just to design the circuit for the PLD
from scratch. Do you have the schematics for the rest of
the circuit? Does it work sufficiently well ?





<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

 

[melone]

Or ask for the source code.....

 

[felixc]

Have you tried freezing or heating the part, to see if it changes anything to the problem?
If it does then it means that something is borderline. If you have the Altera development kit, that you can read and program similar devices, perhaps that reading the device and programming another one with the same code may produce a result. Or maybe burning the same code into a different speed grade can also produce a change.
Does the manufacturer of your camera still exist?

 

[Heydave]

Most programmable logic chips have security bit that once programmed, the program cannot be read out. These can be defeated but only with great effort and physical destruction of the chip.