JAPANESE BOFFINS say they have developed flash memory chips that will last hundreds of years.

The chips also work at lower voltages than conventional chips, according to the scientists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the University of Tokyo.

Current flash chips are estimated to have a useful lifetime of around a decade for most applications. But those that are used a lot could have a useful lifetime of just a few years, it seems.

The boffins said their ferroelectric Nand Flash memory cell can be rewritten more than 100 million times, compared to a conventional cells lifetime of around 10,000.

The ferroelectric cells use a re-writing voltage of fewer than six volts, compared to about 20 volts for conventional chips. They can also be made much smaller than today's chips, which are useless at sizes below 20 nanometres, the scientists said. µ