Continuing my saga of trying to recover data from the Toshiba / KIOXIA SSD on the XPS 13 2-in-1. It is actually a single-chip NVMe storage device, including the memory and controller in a single package (not an eMMC as I wrote above). The drive appears to come in two formats. One is the single-chip direct to board version included on the Dell XPS13 7390 2-in-1. The other format is an m.2 22x30 NVMe carrier board that also includes a handful of external power regulation components.
It's unfortunate that I haven't been able to find datasheets for the Toshiba/KIOXIA BG4 series NVMe chips (detailed electrical characteristics, timing diagrams, pinout information for BGA, and land patterns or mechanical specifications). Kioxia have not replied to my inquiries.
Toshiba KBG40ZPZ512G -> XPS13 direct-to-motherboard IC variant
KIOXIA KBG40ZNS512G -> m.2 m carrier module variant
I purchased two of those m.2 boards, and tried to visually confirm that the IC's on the m.2 modules are actually exactly the same chip as on the XPS laptop. Unfortunately, the IC package on the m.2 variant isn't clearly laser engraved under the model sticker, so I haven't been able to confirm this yet. I can confirm that the IC on the m.2 module is also a 16x20 mm package like the IC on the XPS13, which is very encouraging. I will try to transplant the BGA package from the Dell XPS13 to the carrier board in a few days.
I also picked up a solder mask stencil for the Microsoft surface 1 based on https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...g-kbg40zpz1t02. The stencil pattern shown in that post does match the 16x20 mm chip dimensions of the BG4 packages I have, and looks like the pattern shown in the promotional image I found of the back of the chip. I have not desoldered any of the chips yet to confirm the land pattern on the bottom of the IC, but I will take photos when I do.
I have attached photos of the m.2 board variant. It's frustrating because there is definitely some laser engraved markings on the chip package, but it's not clearly visible at any angle, magnification, or lighting. It looks like there are a few QR code patterns as laser-etched spots, and possibly some text etched as discrete spots (like dot-matrix printed by laser engraver). The text is not legible at all. It does look like the same marking layout / pattern as on the NVMe chip on the XPS 13 (large image below), but the m.2 m variant package isn't legible.
It's unfortunate that I haven't been able to find datasheets for the Toshiba/KIOXIA BG4 series NVMe chips (detailed electrical characteristics, timing diagrams, pinout information for BGA, and land patterns or mechanical specifications). Kioxia have not replied to my inquiries.
Toshiba KBG40ZPZ512G -> XPS13 direct-to-motherboard IC variant
KIOXIA KBG40ZNS512G -> m.2 m carrier module variant
I purchased two of those m.2 boards, and tried to visually confirm that the IC's on the m.2 modules are actually exactly the same chip as on the XPS laptop. Unfortunately, the IC package on the m.2 variant isn't clearly laser engraved under the model sticker, so I haven't been able to confirm this yet. I can confirm that the IC on the m.2 module is also a 16x20 mm package like the IC on the XPS13, which is very encouraging. I will try to transplant the BGA package from the Dell XPS13 to the carrier board in a few days.
I also picked up a solder mask stencil for the Microsoft surface 1 based on https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...g-kbg40zpz1t02. The stencil pattern shown in that post does match the 16x20 mm chip dimensions of the BG4 packages I have, and looks like the pattern shown in the promotional image I found of the back of the chip. I have not desoldered any of the chips yet to confirm the land pattern on the bottom of the IC, but I will take photos when I do.
I have attached photos of the m.2 board variant. It's frustrating because there is definitely some laser engraved markings on the chip package, but it's not clearly visible at any angle, magnification, or lighting. It looks like there are a few QR code patterns as laser-etched spots, and possibly some text etched as discrete spots (like dot-matrix printed by laser engraver). The text is not legible at all. It does look like the same marking layout / pattern as on the NVMe chip on the XPS 13 (large image below), but the m.2 m variant package isn't legible.
Attached Files
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