Recently at Toorcon9 (www.toorcon.org), some individuals asked to see images of decapsulated parts still in their packages. I dug around and came up with some examples. Click on any of the pictures for a larger version.
Above: Microchip PIC18F2550
Above: Dallas DS89C450
Above: Microchip dsPIC30F6013
Using our proprietary procedures, all parts remain 100% functional with no degradation after exposing the substrate.
I know you do this for a living and won’t like to share your secrets, but could you please explain some other processes that can be done to a chip to de-cap it?
I have always been interested in seeing the insides of some telephone cards that I have
The acids we use are very dangerous and will burn if you come in contact with them.
We happened to have a telephone card from Mexico that we scanned in. This particular card used an ST 1355 serial memory. The die revision is ‘D’. We also have a Canadian phone card that has not been imaged of the same die but instead is revision ‘A’ of the silicon.
Rev ‘A’ = 1993
Rev ‘D’ = 2001
We immediately see a security related change between the two parts. We’ll get the older part imaged and do a write up sometime soon.
Click on this link for a larger version of the pic: http://www.flylogic.net/chippics/phonecards/st1355D_large.jpg
Awesome, thanks! I’ll be looking forward to reading that write-up.
Burn Burn Burn!
sweeeeet
oscar Says:
November 4th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I know you do this for a living and won’t like to share your secrets, but could you please explain some other processes that can be done to a chip to de-cap it?
I have always been interested in seeing the insides of some telephone cards that I have
admin Says:
November 5th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
The acids we use are very dangerous and will burn if you come in contact with them.
You said you use HF acid, is that how u “burn off” the encapsulation?
I read some articles in Holland about 7 years ago,Telegraaf newspaper saturday edition, that someone at the Twenthe university managed to “micro probe” a smartcard and was able to reset config bits, by using a certain voltage, one disadvantage, he needed more then one card to
succeed.
He used acid aswell to etch true the plasic.
23th april 2008