Forensic smartphone analysis using adhesives: Transplantation of Package on Package components

Investigators routinely recover data from mobile devices. In many cases the target device is severely damaged. Events such as airplane crashes, accidents, terrorism or long submersion may bend or crack the device's main board and hence prevent using standard forensic tools. This paper shows how to salvage forensic information when NAND memory, SoC or cryptographic chips are still intact. We do not make any assumptions on the state of the other components. In usual forensic investigations, damaged phone components are analysed using a process called “forensic transplantation”. This procedure consists of unsoldering (or lapping) chips, re-soldering them on a functionnal donor board and rebooting.