Break IC, Recover MCU, Microcontroller Reverse Engineering

Posts Tagged ‘pwb modification’

PCB Modification is a Process to re-edit the circuit board layout drawing, which can be converted to gerber file, and make improvement over the schematic diagram of printed circuit board after extract the schematic from it;

There is a 4 layer Printed Circuit Board need to being modified, all the components assembled on the surface have already been removed, PCB surface being cleaned, the process of acquire Printed circuit board gerber file for production through printed circuit board reverse engineering can be seen below:

1 Scan TOP layer circuit board, save the scanning picture and name as TOP.jpg, the DPI value can be set according to the density of PCB card, hereby we choose 400DPI as reference; Scan Bottom layer and name it as BOTTOM.jpg; Use sand paper to abrade the TOP layer copper and expose the 2^nd layer copper circuit pattern, scan the circuit pattern after clean it out and name it as MID1.jpg; Use sand paper to abrade the 2^nd layer copper and expose the 3^nd layer copper circuit pattern, scan the circuit pattern after clean it out and name it as MID2.jpg;

2 Open PCB Board reverse engineering software, click on “file” from MAIN MENU, and then click “OPEN BMP”, select the TOP.bmp file and open it, set up DPI value and then choose the PCB Card layer feature as TOP layer, start to place components, through-hole and arrange PCB Card circuit line, after you have arranged everything on the TOP layer, save file as temporary and name as TOP-1.dpb ( save the files periodically under different name such as TOP-2, TOP-3, TOP-4 prevent files lost from unexpected power cut-off or computer breakdown );

3 Hereby comes to the final step of circuit card modification from a 4 layer circuit board.

Click on “file” from MAIN MENU, and then click “OPEN BMP”, select the BOTTOM.bmp file, at the same time open temporary file TOP-1.dpb, and you will find that circuit card TOP layer picture which has been finished already can’t align to circuit board BOTTOM layer background picture, so you have to use cursor  “UP”, ”DOWN”, ”LEFT”, ”RIGHT” to move its location, now you can choose some reference points to align the layers and after you have finished alignment you can start to place components, through-hole and arrange circuit line on BOTTOM layer, what if circuit line on the TOP layer block your eyesight on BOTTOM layer? It is easy, just from the main menu “Options” select “layer color settings”, cancel the selection of TOP layer as well as silkscreen, after you have arranged everything on the BOTTOM layer, save file as temporary and name as BOTTOM-1.dpb, or as BOTTOM-1.pcb;

Repeat the process you have just been through then can output completed circuit card file from circuit card modification.