Is it possible to make a thumb drive?

[ericmar]

Hi,

May I know if it is possible for one to make an USB thumb drive as a hobby circuit? Are there any detailed information on this? Is there any USB microcontroller which does most of the job and all we need is just to select a flash memory chip and integrate together to make a simple thumb drive?


Thanks,
Eric

 

[the_risk_master]

Hi,


I beleived that there are already available mini HDs, te one that i ued on iPod nanos. They are unbeleivably small about the size of a normal thumb.

 

[ericmar]

Hi,


I beleived that there are already available mini HDs, te one that i ued on iPod nanos. They are unbeleivably small about the size of a normal thumb.

Tat's wat i thought of too! I was wondering how did they manage to operate and run as flash memory storage device.

 

[TechToys]

May I know if it is possible for one to make an USB thumb drive as a hobby circuit?

Yes, from Atmel web site, on SAM7 ARM mcu, there is an example about using the SAM ARM7 mcu as a thumb drive. However, the capacity is only of 32KB, not to say comparing modern xxGB thumb drive from computer stores. Nevertheless, it is a fully working example. I tried that on my SAM7 development board, and it works.

John

www.TechToys.com.hk

 

[ivar4ever]

and do u have any idea on how to incresae the capacity of the drive?

 

[TechToys]

do u have any idea on how to incresae the capacity of the drive?

May try to use the microcontroller as the host taking care of the file system like FAT32. Use external NAND flash e.g. K9F2808 to expand the capacity.

There is quite a number of reference books in my country (China, Hong Kong) about this. Interface examples for ARM given. Still I need some time to test all those codes myself. So i am not sure if they really work. Maybe it is my next project.

Anyway, data sheet of the NAND flash attached, and there is an an MP3 example too! MP3 is a large cap. data storage, right?

John

www.TechToys.com.hk

 

[vvvvv]

Can anyone post here source code for NAND bad block management , wear levelling and other
things needed for using NAND flash with microcontroller
as block device.

 

[dk614nd]

hi

there is a very good reference design from cypress,

u can go through the files attached

regards

dk