> If decades of time passing by are not extreme circumstances, then what is? > > He's basically saying they won't last forever, but what in this world lasts forever? > That was a pretty silly statement. > > I am talking from my dumping experience anyway, I have dumped several thousands of > ass old mask roms and 100% of the bad dumps were bad pins/connections. It's not > rocket science.
Well console ROM chips generally get a pretty easy life. They sit around unused most of the time, and they aren't subjected to much thermal stress. In industrial applications, chips are run close to spec for years on end. A significant proportion of NMOS chips used in industrial applications have gone bad. Modern CMOS chips built on ever-smaller processes with ridiculously thin oxide layers go bad quicker. It isn't that it takes extreme circumstances to make chips go bad, it's just that console ROMs aren't exposed to much at all.