Chip Reverse Engineering

Microscope

Thanks to Karsten Nohl presentation at Hacker Space Fest, there's an interesting DIY approach for reverse engineering.

Features

These are the features we're looking for:

• 500x magnification
• 2 MP to 8 MP camera
• Objective table to move the chip slowly (i.e. not by hand, too much shaking and imprecision)
• Reflected (incident) lighting

Feature we DON'T NEED:

• Confocal microscope (it seems, because we'll abrase/grind away the upper layers anyway and the bottom layers are opaque anyway too)

Leads

• Friend of Phil will lend a microscope with camera
  • not perfect but should enable us to do the first etching/abrasive steps
• Ebay? No perfect match yet.
• Microscope.fr solution
  • Different leads from microscope.fr website
  • Euromex
    • Euromex XE.5627 Discussion Microscope (299 EUR)
    • Euromex AE.5175 Ball-beared mechanical stage (169 EUR)
    • either Euromex DC.3200 CMEX-3 DIGI CMOS Microscope camera (3 MP) (989 EUR) or Euromex DC.1300 CMEX-1 DIGI CMOS Microscope camera (1.3 MP) (469 EUR)
    • Total: from 937 EUR to 1457 EUR
  • Bresser
    • Bresser Trino Researcher II 40-1000x Microscope (349 EUR)
    • Included mechanical stage
    • Bresser PC MicrOcular 3 MP (289 EUR)
    • Total: 638 EUR

Links

• http://www.microscopesinfo.com/olympusmicroscope/
• http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.techniques.microscopy/2005-10/msg00004.html
• Comparison of different microscope imaging solutions
• Adaptor for standard cameras
• Moticam review and some tips
• ebay search for adaptators
• Custom made camera couplers

Microscope tests

Perfect Microscope

Still selecting the right model.

Poor man microscope setup

• Objective table: micro-screws controlled moving plate
• Microscope: 640x optical Bresser (lent by Phil's friend).
• Camera: 3.2 MP Canon Ixus V3
  • Mounting: Attached directly to the eye-piece
  • Drawback: produces round (not square) pictures (with no noticeable deformation) of smaller size/coverage than regular microscope-camera.
  • Advantage: working and free

Substrate

• What kind of glue to use to attach the chip to solid/manoeuvrable support?

Software

• http://hugin.sourceforge.net/