Hello everyone,
I am currently working on my entry for the Texas Instruments Electronics Online Challenge, and I have hit a snag and was hoping I could get some help. On my circuit board, there is an IC chip, that apparently doesn’t exist. I have done hours of research and found nothing. From what I can observe, it is a 44-pin IC chip, and printed on it is “VCP132”, “C-L” and “0521”. This chip is labeled U2 and it is for an RCA Clock Radio (Model: RC105A). There is a grainy picture that I took of it attached below as well as the model info on the front of the PCB. If anyone has any idea what this IC chip is or how I can find more info on it, that would be much appreciated! Thanks.
It’s probably a custom designed IC for that particular manufacturer. You could search for a service manual or something like that but, because clock radios are essentially disposable, there’s probably not a lot of information around. It looks like it’s the main display/clock controller chip, perhaps if you could post a better image we could see what the pin labels are and could make a better guess.
That is what I was thinking too, I just wasn’t sure. The owners manual (which is the only manual for this specific clock radio) has no helpful info. Here is a better image…
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.
You can easily see some of the functionality.
Vcc - power
Gnd - 0v
X0, X1 - oscilator/crystal input, the clock for the IC
SEG1 - SEG18 - display driver outputs, “SEG” meaning segment, they also pass through 100 ohm resistors so are probably driving LED’s.
X00 - X13, these could be switch inputs arranged in an X/Y matrix (switches at the intersection of horizontal and vertical traces), perhaps follow the traces on the board and see where they go.
MUTE - turn sound/alarm/radio off
RAD PW, radio power.
I hate to piggyback on this thread, but I just want to confirm something. If I need to find information about a certain chip, and I can’t find much info about it, finding a comparable chip is probably my best option, correct?