A new breakthrough from Japan may soon change that.  Japanese scientists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the University of Tokyo have developed memory chips that could withstand hundreds of years of use.  They also work at lower voltages than tradition chips, promising power savings.

Most flash chips, such as those used in the memory cards for digital cameras or the Nintendo Wii, only have an estimated lifetime of about a decade.  Even worse, some applications which require frequent reading and writing can wear down cells much faster, sometimes ruining a flash device within only a few years.

For computers, some common scenarios that can wear down SSDs prematurely include the use of a swap file or virtual memory or frequent writes to log files.  Scientists estimate that high density flash circuits in their current state, for lifetime and other reasons are unworkable below 20 nm.  With Intel already starting to prepare for 32 nm production, this limit is fast approaching.

The Japanese scientists state that their new ferroelectric NAND flash cells can scale much smaller, to a scant 10 nm.  The scientists claim that the new cells can be rewritten 100 million times, as opposed to current flash, which can only support about 10,000 writes.

To further prolong the cell life, they employ a wear-leveling technology, in which all cells are used equally, and overused cells are "retired".  The end result is lifetimes of 100+ years.  Additionally, the new ferroelectric cells operate at 6 volts or less.  Current flash cells use 20 V, meaning that the new cells will likely cut power consumption by as much as a factor of 3.

The researchers hope to bring the technology to market within a couple years.