Your pessimism belies a distinct lack of experience, if not also a dearth of imagination.
Harnesses for such things are not cheap, nor are they something you can just order from Reichelt. But, I assure you, there are reverse engineering labs in the world that can do this. There are technicians who think nothing whatsoever of de-soldering a BGA and using microscopes to rig things up. They do it before lunch, even.
The OP may have some details wrong - they're clearly laymen describing an anecdote - but that doesn't mean for an instance that this "isn't possible".
There is always a higher-speed logic analyzer, capable of operating faster than the consumer device under test. That's how the consumer DUT's get tested at the ATE, in the first place ..
Your pessimism belies a distinct lack of experience, if not also a dearth of imagination.
You keep missing the point and trying to insult my experience in the process.
We're talking about a university student and CPU opcodes. The whole side story about probing the chip is completely irrelevant. This is a software task.
But, I assure you, there are reverse engineering labs in the world that can do this.
We're talking about a university student.
There are technicians who think nothing whatsoever of de-soldering a BGA and using microscopes to rig things up. They do it before lunch, even.
I'm talking about the fixturing required to actually probe those pins. Replacing the BGA is the easy part. You can't probe a large BGA by having a tech remove and replace it. The contrast between you trying to insult my experience while not understanding the task at hand is truly something.
You've chosen a weird hill to die on, given how much you're arguing things that have no relevance to the story.
Maybe your university students aren't as well-funded as my university students, ever thought of that, huh? Maybe your universities are lagging behind the state of the art in the rest of the civilized world. Maybe, you just don't know enough about this subject, actually.
I'm talking about the fixturing required to actually probe those pins.
This just isn't as impossible as you claim. And, there are plenty of reasons to do it.
Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean someone else hasn't already actually done it.
Comments
Your pessimism belies a distinct lack of experience, if not also a dearth of imagination.
Harnesses for such things are not cheap, nor are they something you can just order from Reichelt. But, I assure you, there are reverse engineering labs in the world that can do this. There are technicians who think nothing whatsoever of de-soldering a BGA and using microscopes to rig things up. They do it before lunch, even.
The OP may have some details wrong - they're clearly laymen describing an anecdote - but that doesn't mean for an instance that this "isn't possible".
There is always a higher-speed logic analyzer, capable of operating faster than the consumer device under test. That's how the consumer DUT's get tested at the ATE, in the first place ..
You keep missing the point and trying to insult my experience in the process.
We're talking about a university student and CPU opcodes. The whole side story about probing the chip is completely irrelevant. This is a software task.
We're talking about a university student.
I'm talking about the fixturing required to actually probe those pins. Replacing the BGA is the easy part. You can't probe a large BGA by having a tech remove and replace it. The contrast between you trying to insult my experience while not understanding the task at hand is truly something.
You've chosen a weird hill to die on, given how much you're arguing things that have no relevance to the story.
Maybe your university students aren't as well-funded as my university students, ever thought of that, huh? Maybe your universities are lagging behind the state of the art in the rest of the civilized world. Maybe, you just don't know enough about this subject, actually.
This just isn't as impossible as you claim. And, there are plenty of reasons to do it.
Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean someone else hasn't already actually done it.
Upvoting this purely because I want to see you two argue more hahahhaha