Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/20

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Subject: RE: [Leica] XRAY
From: "Frank Filippone" <red735i@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 16:14:46 -0800

Xray will seriously hurt, and finallly fry, cmos circuits.  The effects are
cumulative, and non reversible.  The effects ar more a problem with
capacitive products, like memories.  Static RAM, dynamic RAM, EPROM, Bubble,
and flash memories are all affected.

Digital memory cards are primarily ( I do not know of any exceptions, but
WTH)  Flash memories.  In the initial stages, the memory contents will be
altered.  ( 0 goes to a 1)  Later, the cell will be flaky, and finally,
hardened into one state or the other.  The effect is made worse by making
the cells smaller.  You all can read that as smaller cells = lower cost =
lower selling price = more volume = more profit for the IC guys.

However, in all fairness to the diital memory guys, the effects would need
to be repeated occurences, like lots of repeats... like many thousand... to
get an effect that is permanent....  Not likely, unless you were a real
frequent flier....besides, the cameras are basically updated ( means throw
out the old model and buy a new model) more often than the effect would be
found.  So a mute point.

Film IS the problem.

Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net

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