[Theory5]

Hey guys,
well I am going to school for network engineering, and I'm a Junior. So I am taking fairly advanced courses, and for one we have to practically reverse engineer a cisco 2514 series router which is old. My professor wants a portfolio that encompasses the hardware architecture, the iOS architecture, and the software of said router as well as an analysis for each thing.

Right now I am stumped on a particular piece of the hardware. We had to open up our router, record EVERY chip in it, and use that to construct a Hardware Logical Architecture Drawing.

I am kind of stumped on the processors though. There was no one CPU type chip, so I have assumed (based on what the professor asked us) that there are multiple main processing chips on the board. I am basing my estimate of the chips on several large chips that have a LOT of I/O connectors for the chips of their size. But when I google the chip names all I get are datasheets that infer that these chips are 'programmable'.

So my first question is there anything on these datasheets that will alert me to a processor chip? I was thinking something like the number of macro cells or gates might give it away but I'm not sure.
Second, am I right in guessing that the chips covered in I/O connectors are most likely processor chips?

I have my eye on two AMI chips:
AMI – 9702LLM 08-0002-01
AMI – 9703LMI 08-0001-01

an Altera chip
Altera epm7032lc44-15 ba9643
--! scratch that, the altera is a processing chip !--

And a motorola chip (which has the most connections of them all).

Can anyone help me reason this out or point me in the right direction?

I have a picture of the router, but I think putting that up might violate some sort of propriatery law.

[maddog]

Theory5, on 05 January 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

So my first question is there anything on these datasheets that will alert me to a processor chip? I was thinking something like the number of macro cells or gates might give it away but I'm not sure.

Somewhere near the top will say something like "microprocessor" or "microcontroller".

Theory5, on 05 January 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

Second, am I right in guessing that the chips covered in I/O connectors are most likely processor chips?

Yes, though you will also including things like bus interface chips or transceivers as well.

Theory5, on 05 January 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

I have my eye on two AMI chips:
AMI – 9702LLM 08-0002-01
AMI – 9703LMI 08-0001-01

I discovered a few years back that AMI Semiconductor was acquired by ON Semiconductor. So you may need to search on their website

On Semiconductor

Theory5, on 05 January 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

And a motorola chip (which has the most connections of them all).

I know quite a bit of chips Motorola made, though depending on how far back or not, it may be supported by a spin-off company of theirs

Freescale

On other comment I will make is a new thing manufacturers are using now is a lot ASICs made by either Altera or Xilinx. It is cheaper
than making Custom Cell or Hybrids if you want to lower cost of using some standard and adding additional hardware functionality.

I hope this helps.

maddog