Gamecards

A 3DS gamecard

Close-up of PCB

Physical interface

The 3DS gamecards have the same physical interface as regular DS and DSi gamecards. There is only a minor cosmetic difference in the plastic case, which has a small extruding notch on the top-right side. As such, it prevents insertion of the gamecard into old Nintendo DS or DSi systems.

When modifying the case so that the 3DS gamecard fits in a DS or DSi system, those systems will refuse to detect the gamecard and show no banner icon.

Pin	Name	Description
1	GND	Ground
2	CLK	Clock. Frequencies 6.7MHz and 4.2MHz for DS/DSi gamecards, up to 16.6MHz for 3DS gamecards (for both SPI and ROM transfers).
3	NC	Not connected. Possibly used to program cards.
4	RCS	ROM select, active low. Pulled low to start a ROM transfer.
5	RST	Reset, active low.
6	ECS	Savegame chip select, active low. Pulled low to start a savegame SPI transfer.
7	IRQ	Removal detection.
8	VCC	Powersupply 3.3V.
9	DAT0	Bidirectional data bus.
10	DAT1	Bidirectional data bus.
11	DAT2	Bidirectional data bus.
12	DAT3	Bidirectional data bus.
13	DAT4	Bidirectional data bus / pin NC/SIO3 on savegame chip.
14	DAT5	Bidirectional data bus / pin WP#/SIO2 on savegame chip.
15	DAT6	Bidirectional data bus / pin SO/SIO1 on savegame chip.
16	DAT7	Bidirectional data bus / pin SI/SIO0 on savegame chip.
17	GND	Ground

VCC is only enabled when the power supply bits of CFG9_CARDSTATUS are set to 10. This is in contrast to the DS and DSi, where the power supply is always available when the console is on.

SPI flash

Savegame SPI flash transfers use CPOL=1 and CPHA=1. So far, only one savegame FLASH chip has been identified. The chip identifies as a 0xC22211. The JEDEC manufacturer ID is Macronix, and despite the chip label saying 25L1001, the JEDEC ID matches the MX25L1021E. Datasheet at:
Macronix (Rev. 1.3, nov. 11, 2013)
Old version mirror (Rev. 0.01, apr. 07, 2010)
However, the MX25L1021E doesn't support the 4 bit wide transmission that the 3DS uses to talk to the SPI flash. It is thus likely that this is a custom flash chip.

Format

Cartridges can come in several sizes and include system updates in a region reserved for this. In ROMs less than 1GB the update region can be found with: CART_SIZE_MAX-( 0x280000*(CART_SIZE_MAX/CART_SIZE_128MB) )-0x2000000. The region is then 0x2000000 bytes.

Protocol

The communication protocol between the 3DS system and the 3DS gamecard has changed almost completely in comparison with the DS and DSi gamecard communication protocol.

After the sixth transfer, commands change size from 8 bytes to 16 bytes. Possibly a new encryption is used, such as AES CTR. When 16-byte commands are used, the data bus maintains the value 0x00 until the card signals it is ready by clocking a single byte 0x01, followed by the actual data. After each 0x200-byte block of actual data, a 4-byte standard CRC32 of the block data (before encryption) follows.

Here's a set of sample gamecard commands that a 3DS sends to a 3DS gamecard:

Size	Command	Decrypted command	Description
2000	9F00000000000000	?	Reset
0000	71C93FE9BB0A3B18	?	Unknown
0004	9000000000000000	?	Get gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	9000000000000000	?	Get gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	A000000000000000	?	Unknown, response=00000000
0000	3E00000000000000	?	Enter 16-byte command mode.
0200	82000000000000000000000000000000	?	Get header
0000	F32C92D85C9D44DED3E0E41DBE7C90D9	8300000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Seed
0004	696B9D8582FB55D31B68CAFE70C74A95	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	BAA4812CA0AC9C5D19399530E3ACCCAB	A300000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Unknown
0000	178E427C22D87ADB86387249A97D321A	C500000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Unknown
0004	E06019B1BD5C9130ED6A4D9F4A9E7193	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	4E0D224862523BBFE2E6255F80E15F37	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	4CDF93D319FB62D0DB632A45E3E8D84C	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	9AA5D80551002F955546D296A57F0FEF	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0004	C12BA81AEF30DDDBD93FAD5D544C6334	A200000000000000708DF1A731717D0B	Get secured gamecard ID, response=9000FEC2
0200	62EC5FB7F420AE1DC6253AE18AFA5BB3	BF000000000000000000000000000000	Read address 0
0200	E3FA23AA016BE0C93430D1F42FF41324	BF000000000040000000000000000000	Read address 0x4000

The header command has some initial dummy bytes, and eventually responds with a 0x200 byte header. Here's an example for Lego Starwars 3:

0000000: 00 8c 03 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000010: b3 cf fb c6 6a b1 cb 20 32 af ce 35 d4 1c 74 c9  ....j.. 2..5..t.
0000020: 8e 6b 27 2f 08 01 28 3b d4 30 de 44 37 f5 b0 46  .k'/..(;.0.D7..F
0000030: 91 59 d7 38 33 48 df 83 fd 71 84 2c 00 00 00 00  .Y.83H...q.,....
0000040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000a0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000b0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000c0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000d0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000e0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00000f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000100: 4e 43 43 48 7a 7f 0e 00 00 8c 03 00 00 00 04 00  NCCHz...........
0000110: 36 34 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 8c 03 00 00 00 04 00  64..............
0000120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0000150: 43 54 52 2d 50 2d 41 4c 47 50 00 00 00 00 00 00  CTR-P-ALGP......
0000160: 0c 27 e3 c1 de 7b 2a e2 d3 11 4f 32 a4 ee bf 46  .'...{*...O2...F
0000170: 9a fd 0c f3 52 c1 1d 49 84 c2 a9 f1 d2 14 4c 63  ....R..I......Lc
0000180: 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 03 00 00  ................
0000190: 05 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00001a0: 06 00 00 00 1c 0a 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
00001b0: 22 0a 00 00 58 75 0e 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  "...Xu..........
00001c0: 13 0c 04 26 15 f6 47 c4 c6 32 25 ea 9e 67 f8 a2  ...&..G..2%..g..
00001d0: 7b 15 24 6b 88 fb c7 a9 27 25 7b 84 97 7b 78 7b  {.$k....'%{..{x{
00001e0: a6 5b ee 10 60 bb 6a 68 21 bb ce c6 00 03 5b 7e  .[..`.jh!.....[~
00001f0: 64 fb 6e ac a7 f0 96 0c fb 1f 5a 37 08 77 28 f7  d.n.......Z7.w(.