May
24
Beneath the Blob of a Tamago
An excellent neighbour decapped a Tamago I sent him. So now we know what’s underneath the blob on the Tamago board.
Wanted! Have you seen me?
Or well, not quite. The next step is identifying what is on the chip.
The chip has two logos. The first is possibly a lot number:
S08C3CR35732 is the magic number
Another number also appears on the board (bottom right), it might be GFI435.
Unfortunately, neither of these mean much to me, and I can’t identify the device. So now I don’t know what’s under the blob in much greater detail 
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Google yields three results when you put the S08C number… all of them were created by you. Perhaps it’s the serial number? Although, I have my doubts about that, as they’d basically have to re-tool their setup for every chip they produce. Also, a serial number is something I’d think they’d want to keep easily accessible (unless maybe there’s some sort of security reason not to… a cryptographic key perhaps?)
GFI435 produces more interesting results, but nothing that seems relevant (plus, I’m assuming you’ve already googled these).
At any rate, if it’s not a unique identifier of some sort, it would seem you’re the first person to ever find it… if so, congratulations, I guess…
I’m guessing these are manufactured out-of-house, so the number might be used to identify the chip/mask/order on that end. It’s my understanding that the masks they use to make these are supremely expensive (in the tens of thousands of dollars), so it’s unlikely it’s unique per device.
I think this just means I’m the first person to decap a tamagotchi, which I would like to say surprises me, but …
Yeah… that’s why I was doubtful that it was a unique identifier. I know when I farm my boards out to my PCB manufacturer, they add some sort of identification number to the silkscreen. It’s probably something similar.
I guess the upside is the fact that you have the bragging rights of being the first person to find this… the downside of course, would be that it’ll be that much more difficult to find information on the chip.