7 Dec
2000
7 Dec
'00
9:05 p.m.
Yes, of course that's how flourescent lamps work.
I think
they even still have mercury vapor in them. However, I questioned
whether the dinky little lamp in a scanner would zap a windowed
(and presumably stickered) EEPROM.
The glass of the normal fluorescent lamp acts as a pretty good
shortwave UV filter. Otherwise the things would be dangerous.
Shortwave UV lamps use a quartz envelope rather than glass, and
ceramic windowed EPROM packages use a quartz window. This makes
the lamps and the ceramic windowed packages are more expensive than
they would otherwise be.