The controller itself has relatively high power requirements. The ChipGenius utility reports often show power consumption figures around 498mA to 504mA for these devices, which is very close to the USB port's maximum rated capacity. When operating near these power limits, the controller can generate substantial heat during active data transfer.
Open the USB drive casing (carefully pry apart plastic clips). Inside, you will see a small PCB. The PS2251-07 is the square chip.
The PS2251-07 is a native USB 3.0-to-Flash microcontroller developed by Phison Electronics, a Taiwanese company that specializes in storage controllers for USB drives and SSDs. It is physically identical to the PS2307—the two model numbers refer to the same chip and are used interchangeably in the community. phison ps225107ps2307 hot
Use a USB extension cable so you can isolate the flash drive away from your warm computer chassis.
The modern trend is moving away from Phison’s older USB controllers to ASMedia or in-house designs that use advanced power gating. The controller itself has relatively high power requirements
The PS2251-07/PS2307 controller has gained attention in the security research community for its ability to accept custom firmware that transforms the drive into a BadUSB device. As documented in GitHub repositories, this controller can be reprogrammed to act as an HID (Human Interface Device) keyboard.
Before addressing the heat, we must understand the hardware. The (marketed commercially as the PS2307 ) is a USB 3.0 to NAND flash controller. It is a single-chip solution designed for high-performance flash drives. Open the USB drive casing (carefully pry apart
Click the button on the right-hand panel. Your drive should appear in one of the channel slots, marked with a white or green box.