Dreamcast parts on Alibaba

[Caspian]

Hello all,

Recently I found in Alibaba, listings of some of the Integrated Circuits that were used on the Dreamcast. I was wondering how could this be possible, especially with the case of Dreamcast's GPU (CLX2?) that was a product from NEC specifically designed for the Dreamcast.

From a search in various forums and the internet, people suggest caution mainly because of 1) a relatively high percentage of malfunctioning ICs that are being sold in Alibaba, 2) some even claim that many of the sellers export counterfeited ICs. While some of the simpler ICs can be copied, I do not see how a chinese manufacturer could have counterfeited a complicated chip such as CLX2 as it could be a process that would require a lot of money and effort.

I would imagine that the production of those ICs used for the Dreamcast (or at least some of them) would have stopped by now.
-Could those ICs still be manufactured?
-If yes, do the chinese have licenses for that or could there be legal complications for anyone that would use them?

[Nz17]

As long as the dimensions, inputs, and outputs are correct, then using these Chinese IC's should be fine. Besides, SEGA manufactured Dreamcasts and their parts around the world including China. There are no legal complications in owning, using, buying, selling, or manufacturing these parts. The patents for them expired a long time ago, and so any company is now free to manufacture them without a patent license and without paying royalties to SEGA, NEC, or any other company.

[Caspian]

@Nz17
Yes, what you say sounds logical. I expect that for the more complicated ICs, if they are counterfeited there could be performance issues but all-in-all they should work, with chinese reliability being another issue.

[BlueCrab]

It is always possible that the chips aren't new, but rather just old stock that was never used during manufacturing or that they are reclaimed from machines that have since been scrapped.

[Caspian]

@BlueCrab
This is true, I have read many who have reported similar issues in various forums. But I guess that this case applies more to AliExpress (where smaller quantities are sold) than to Alibaba. In Alibaba the suppliers claim they can provide thousand's of ICs in a particular time-frame (e.g month, year-quarter etc.) which is an indication that they indeed have a production line for the ICs.