Pinout

Gamecard-pinout.png

Pin Name Direction Description
0 IRQ? Output Always wired to GND inside game cartridge; Possibly used for interrupt signaling
1 RCLK Output Return clock; Game cartridge sends back CLK signal delayed by a few ns
2 CLK Input Clock, 25MHz
3 CS Input Chip select; Switch pulls this LOW during a transfer
4 DAT0 Inout Data bus pin 0
5 DAT1 Inout Data bus pin 1
6 VCC 3.3v Input
7 DAT2 Inout Data bus pin 2
8 DAT3 Inout Data bus pin 3
9 VCC 1.8v Input
10 DAT4 Inout Data bus pin 4
11 DAT5 Inout Data bus pin 5
12 DAT6 Inout Data bus pin 6
13 DAT7 Inout Data bus pin 7
14 GND
15 RST Input Reset, active LOW.

All IO use 1.8V for logic HIGH and 0V for logic LOW.


Protocol

Switch game cartridges use a simple (but Nintendo proprietery) SPI-like bus with 8-bit width (DAT7..0). It is very similar to the bus interface of 3DS game cartridges, except with very different commands.

The Switch host starts a transfer by first pulling CS low, followed by clocking a byte each clock cycle. The bus data will always be ready before the rising edge of the CLK signal, so that it can be captured on the rising edge. After command bytes are written to the bus, the direction of the bus implicitly changes and the game cartridge responds. The Switch host keeps clocking while the game cartridge responds. After the transfer is ended, the CS line is pulled high again.


Commands are 16 bytes long, and followed immediately by a 4-byte CRC-32 over the command bytes. After this, the bus direction changes, and the bus will be 'floating' for a few cycles (TBD figure out if cartridge can respond with NAK over bad CRC during floating bus).

Before the game cartridge responds with the actual response data, it will send busy bytes (LSB will be zero) to the Switch host, until it is ready to send the real response. When the game cartridge is ready, it will send 2 acknowledgement bytes (LSB will be one) to let the Switch host know. After this, the game cartridge will send the actual response bytes.

The actual response bytes are also followed immediately by a 4-byte CRC-32 over the actual response bytes.

Commands
Command Description
5B000000000000010000000000000000 Read sector 0, contains "HEAD" blob
5B000000000000010000000000000000 Read sector 0, contains "HEAD" blob
56000000000000000000000000000000 Read card id "AE F8 01 21"
28000000000000000000000000000000 Read ??? "02 00 00 00"
A5000000000000000000000000000000 Read ??? "00 00 00 00"
56000000000000000000000000000000 Read card id "AE F8 01 21"
28000000000000000000000000000000 Read ??? "02 00 00 00"
5B000000380000010000000000000000 Read sector 0x38, contains "CERT" blob
E2000000000000000000000000000000 Read ??? "01 00 00 00"
E0000000000000000000000000000000 Read crypto-challenge header
200838A25A344F818ABB6456694D4E8D Enter crypto mode with seed "0838A25A344F818ABB6456694D4E8D"
7EE41FDF12C01C157CC899910673A0CF Encrypted command
263C8230EC15FAE3CE79365BD850F4BD Encrypted command
B6FDA6F37FFA29E18831D0B217DFBDBE Encrypted command
7B97F7DF07240AA9870E1C974336FA8A Encrypted command


The meaning of some these commands are currently unknown.

Encryption

After a few initial plaintext commands, the Switch instructs the game cartridge to enter into encrypted mode. From that point on, commands and responses are sent encrypted over the bus. The encryption algorithm used is currently unknown.

1,2 Switch

Credit images: smiba (link)

Description

  • Package: TSOP-48
  • Manufacturer: Unknown

Frontside

 

Frontside (bare)

 

Backside

 

Zelda: Breath of the wild

Credit images: Retr0id (link)

Description

  • Package: Custom
  • Manufacturer: Macronix (MX)

Overview

 

Frontside

 

Backside

 

Schematic

Credit images: smiba (link)

Connector Pinout Schematic

 

Chip Pinout Schematic