If you order a lot of chips mask programming is an option, along with
specific/special markings.  I believe that they usually charge a large
setup fee for the mask programming and then for the stamping/laser
marking, then a low cost per thousand for the chips.

I've heard of individuals sanding off the markings and placing their own
through varous means.  I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to make a tray
that holds 24-40 chips which can be sanded at once then silk-screen
printed at once making the job quick and easy for a medium number of parts.

I imagine they want this is obscure the fact that it's a PIC.  I've
heard of people turning the leads upside down and designing the PCB to
match so you can't determined the chip type from the pinout as easily.

Still others buy the dice from the manufacturer and have them custom
packaged with a different pinout and marking by another manufacturer.

If this is going to be a very high volume app you might consider having
a company put the dice directly on board (COB) and blobbing epoxy over
it.  Won't stop the determined from getting your product, but will stop
the curious.

-Adam

Tal (Zapta) wrote:

>Hello,
>
>This is for a friend of mine. He developed microcontroller firmware for a
>specific application and
>want to sell the programmed chips under his own name. That is, instead of
>having the
>chip vendor marking on the chip, he wants to have his own chip number.
>
>Any advice how to do that ? Can he order the chips from chip vendor with the
>private marking or even have the manufacture program/mask the chips ?
>
>What about small quantities, is there a way to erase the original marking
>and stamp his own ?
>
>Currently this is a garage operation but potentially he may strike gold and
>have large
>orders.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Tal
>
>--
>http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different
>ways.  See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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