ipod Nano flash memory made into a USB drive: feasible?

[s2kpacifist]

I took apart a broken ipod nano 1st gen and removed the NAND flash memory (Samsung 540 K9HAG08U1M) hoping to put it to good use. Now I have a spare flash drive laying around, which got me thinking - why not put them together and make a 4gig flash drive?

Now I'm no double E major, but from wiki I take it I need to somehow attach a:

-Crystal oscillator
-Memory controller
-USB connector
-some transistors

to the flash memory. Except I can't seem to find a how-to anywhere. Has anyone attempted this before? Would it even be feasible to solder these together by hand? BTW this is just a fun project, so I'm not too worried about risk of failure. Also, could the LCD from the Nano be put to good use as well?

Thanks in advance for answering my noob questions!

 

[Modelworks]

It could be done , but would not be cost effective.
By the time you put together all the parts and a pc board to put it all on your going to be at the cost of a 4GB usb drive already pre-made.

 

[s2kpacifist]

But it wouldn't be very fun to walk over to the store and buy one

I'm thinking the easiest way would be to try removing the memory from the spare flash drive and somehow swap the ipod NAND flash with the existing thumb drive's memory . As to how hard this would be, or potential problems arising from this, I'm in the dark.

It's hard to believe it would be as easy as desoldering and resoldering.

 

[slackwarelinux]

Edit: Sorry, I failed at reading comprehension. I thought you were trying to stick the flash chip from the ipod on to a flash drive.

 

[Modelworks]

If your really serious about doing this, the first thing you need to do is locate the datasheet for the nand memory you removed from the ipod.

That will have the information that is needed to interface to the chip.
I would start by searching the samsung site for nand memory and that chip number.

Without the datasheet your not going to be able to do much of anything with the chip.

 

[PottedMeat]

Im confused - you took out the Samsung NAND flash out of a ipod? so you desoldered the surface mount ICs off the board? or are they on a little daughtercard that you can take out - so there is a interface you can use between the memory card and the controller?

and yeah you're not going anywhere without the datasheets.

surface mount soldering is pretty easy with a steady hand and 2 pencil irons. what kind of packaging are these chips? SMD with the little feet on the outside or BGA ( which is practically impossible for hobbyists to solder ).