What is "phison"

Phison Electronics Corporation is a Taiwanese public electronics company that primarily manufactures controllers for NAND flash memory chips. These are integrated into flash-based products such as USB flash drives, memory cards, and solid-state drives (SSDs). Some Sony MicroVault USB sticks and Verbatim Store n Go USB sticks use Phison USB-to-Flash micro-controller ICs.

Phison claims to have produced the earliest "USB flash removable disk," dubbed "Pen Drive," in May 2001. Phison is a member of the Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group, which aims to standardize the hardware interface to NAND flash chips.

In early October 2014, security researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson publicly released source code to a firmware attack against Phison USB controller ICs. This code implements the BadUSB exploit described in July 2014 at the Black Hat Briefings conference.