Blob'O Processor: Bless The Reader (And Disassembler)

Within my June 12 EDN issue’s lengthy Prying Eyes teardown of Argus’ DCM-099 low-cost digicam, I wrote:

Speaking of encapsulation, the chip-on-board system processor likely can be found under the blob of black epoxy in the center of the PCB. Its specifics are unknown.

Leave it to my clever readers to take my analysis to the next level! Yesterday, I received the following email from Ian Farquhar at RSA Technology:

Brian,
I read your article on the Argus mini-camera with interest. I have one (differently branded), so I was curious about your teardown. I’d purchased mine for the same reason, although I’ve never gotten to pulling it apart.

You mentioned the blob-on-a-board SoC, listing it as unknown. I can help you there. It’s almost certainly a "Service and Quality Technology" DSC-SQ905C. Yes, it contains a processor, but they don’t document exactly what.

Here’s how I figured it out what it was: I downloaded the Argus driver, and installed it. This creates a directory <WINDOWS>/TWAIN_32/MyDSC2. Inside that directory are a bunch of files, although toycam.dll did look interesting. Using PE Explorer to dump the version data from that yielded:

Child Type:         StringFileInfo
Language/Code Page: 1028/1200
Comments:           905CP , AVI run Hi-Quality
CompanyName:        Service&Quality Technology Co., LTD.
FileDescription:    905CP ToyCam DLL
FileVersion:        0, 0, 1, 4
InternalName:       ToyCam
LegalCopyright:     (C) Service&Quality Technology Co., LTD. , All rights reserved.
LegalTrademarks:
OriginalFilename:   ToyCam.DLL
PrivateBuild:
ProductName:        SQ905D
ProductVersion:     9, 0, 5, 4
SpecialBuild:       Build 20050902 For TWAIN Save AVI

A quick Google check led me to http://www.sq.com.tw, and the 905C in their product section. Going back to the rest of their driver files confirmed that the 905C was the correct part.

So there you have it. Thanks everso, Ian!