That New Memory Smell: Tech Can Tell if Your Flash is New or Recycled

Flash is designed to last a decade or more of use. A lot of the gadgets that rely on it are not. Shady recyclers have spotted opportunity in that mismatch, stripping out used chips and selling them as new.

But engineers at the University of Alabama have come up with a straightforward electronic examination that can tell if a flash chip is new or recycled, even if that chip has only seen 5 percent or less of its life. And the technique is so straightforward that a smartphone app could run it on its own memory.

Source: ieee.org