HDD GURU FORUMS

I have an Imation flash drive with a PS2251-68-5 controller and eMMC169 chip. The controller has a hole burned out the middle. The nearest pinout I could find for this controller is for the PS2251-33. Does anyone have the correct pinout, or know if the picture attached would be the same?

I don't see any eMMC pins in the PS2251-33 pinout diagram.

See pages 5 and 7:

https://datasheet.octopart.com/MTFC2GMVEA-0M-WT-Micron-datasheet-14049759.pdf

Do you have a photo of the PCB?

I will post a pic tomorrow. I was going to trace the pinout from the controller through the board to define the eMMC pins.

fzabkar wrote:I don't see any eMMC pins in the PS2251-33 pinout diagram.

See pages 5 and 7:

https://datasheet.octopart.com/MTFC2GMVEA-0M-WT-Micron-datasheet-14049759.pdf

Do you have a photo of the PCB?

There wouldn't be, the controller uses NAND. The controller pins would go to the chips other raw NAND pads, not typically shown in the datasheet.

Tim, just find another 2251-68-5 drive with a TSOP. then work backwards on that drive to find pinout of controller. These drives are very common in verbatim, Toshiba, emtec etc.

case in point, I bought my weekly test drives yesterday and out of 4, all were Phison, and one was a 68-5.





I don't have a DMM here with me, and tonight and the weekend is nuts but I could trace one for you by Monday if it helps

edit,
you may get some hints on which pads, (but not the order) by looking at the pics from bolo and their adapters!

Am I blind, or does the Toshiba flash drive consist of a 28-pin controller and 24-pin flash IC?

fzabkar wrote:Am I blind, or does the Toshiba flash drive consist of a 28-pin controller and 24-pin flash IC?

If you were blind, you wouldn't even see that! sorry

no it does appear like that, but because I reduced the quality of the picture and it is blurring the pins.

here is a better picture of that one.

For completeness here is the PCB.

Brian, this particular board also has TSOP connections which will make the job easier. I presume a donor controller in this case may also work. I will try both and get back to you.

ddrecovery wrote:The nearest pinout I could find for this controller is for the PS2251-33. Does anyone have the correct pinout, or know if the picture attached would be the same?

ddrecovery wrote:For completeness here is the PCB.

Well, the PS2251-33 has 64 pins while the PS2251-68-5 has 48 ...

Brian, this particular board also has TSOP connections which will make the job easier.

You haven't identified the flash IC, but the BGA balls do appear to match an eMMC BGA-153 pinout. Does this mean that the controller can be configured to handle either eMMC or regular NAND flash?

fzabkar wrote:Well, the PS2251-33 has 64 pins while the PS2251-68-5 has 48 ...

You are correct. I did say it was the nearest I could find at the time, but should have looked at the number of pins for a more accurate representation.

fzabkar wrote:You haven't identified the flash IC, but the BGA balls do appear to match an eMMC BGA-153 pinout. Does this mean that the controller can be configured to handle either eMMC or regular NAND flash?

I didn't see the need to identify the eMMC chip as we do not know the pinout. The pinout for the BGA-153 and BGA-169 have the same pinout. However the pinout you have supplied is via the eMMC controller, we are after the pinout to the eMMC NAND

ddrecovery wrote:However the pinout you have supplied is via the eMMC controller, we are after the pinout to the eMMC NAND :wink:

Then why would you need to know the pinout of the flash controller? ;-)

fzabkar wrote:

ddrecovery wrote:However the pinout you have supplied is via the eMMC controller, we are after the pinout to the eMMC NAND

Then why would you need to know the pinout of the flash controller?

Because the external flash controller bypasses the internal eMMC controller and routes directly into the eMMC NAND. So the only way to get the NAND pinout is via the flash controller. Or am I not understanding your question?

This site refers to them as custom NAND chips (it's 153 balls, not 149):

https://www.recovermyflashdrive.com/latest-bga-149-nand-chip-from-china/

Toshiba's datasheet refers to these chips as eMMC:

https://www.glynshop.com/erp/owweb/Daten/Datenblaetter/DRAM_FLASH_MEDIEN/10_Nand%20solution/05_Toshiba/01_Datenblaetter/01_Original/eMMC/eMMC_15nm/THGBMDG5D1LBAIL_20151201_1.00.pdf

So does this mean that some Chinese manufacturer has repurposed Toshiba's eMMC chips (rejects ?) as regular NAND flash?

Is it possible that your chip still functions as an eMMC (ie with a working embedded controller), in which case you wouldn't need to do anything more than read it in an appropriate reader?

fzabkar wrote:So does this mean that some Chinese manufacturer has repurposed Toshiba's eMMC chips (rejects ?) as regular NAND flash?

Probably. They may have purchased a bunch of these chips with failed controllers due to a manufacturing error for example. They then repurpose them to go in these flash drives.

fzabkar wrote:Is it possible that your chip still functions as an eMMC (ie with a working embedded controller), in which case you wouldn't need to do anything more than read it in an appropriate reader?

I did try the standard eMMC pinout when I first got it, but as suspected the controller is dead.

fzabkar wrote:So does this mean that some Chinese manufacturer has repurposed Toshiba's eMMC chips (rejects ?) as regular NAND flash?

There is no waste in the flash business. We should stop using the term "Jump Drive" and refer to them all as "Junk Drives"

fzabkar wrote:This site refers to them as custom NAND chips (it's 153 balls, not 149):
https://www.recovermyflashdrive.com/latest-bga-149-nand-chip-from-china/

By the way - when Jeremy sees this I am sure he will give me the pinout

Can we assume that the TSOP-48 pads reflect a standard ONFI pinout, as in HaQue's example?

ddrecovery, why do not trace from TSOP48 pads to pads for eMMC chip? It is 10 minutes work maximum, and you will get the pinout. You not need controller pinout.

arvika wrote:ddrecovery, why do not trace from TSOP48 pads to pads for eMMC chip? It is 10 minutes work maximum, and you will get the pinout. You not need controller pinout.

I was thinking the same thing, but how can we be certain that the TSOP-48 pinout is standard ONFI? In fact, if we knew that the pinout was standard, then there would have been no reason to remove the chip.

fzabkar, from my experience for about 10 years I meet only three cases that TOSP48 have other pinout than standard. Anyway, it is easy to check.