Some Windows Phones Contain NASA Chips

Sadly, my phone just contains ordinary chips…. such is life.

It turns out that your Windows Phone 7 device might be worth a lot more than you think, if it contains custom, radiation hardened memory chips, mistakenly installed when it was built.  Apparently, because the part numbers of the memory chips only differ by an H (for hardened) production plants put the highly valuable devices into a number of Windows Phone devices when they were made.

Ivan Felfrit, NASA spokesman, is saying that these chips were originally destined for the next generation of Mars Rovers, Spirit II and Opportunity IV. “We need several sets urgently” he said earlier today, “We have to test the programs on genuine hardware and we also need the devices for endurance testing”. NASA are happy to give you a replacement phone and 10,000 dollars if you have a device with these components inside. They have advanced surface mount labs where they can remove them and install them in Mars Rover prototypes.

To find out if your phone has the chips in it, just to to Settings->About and touch “More Information”. You should see the screen above. If the Chip SOC version is set to 0:36.2.0 you have the NASA chips. Mine above only has 0.36.2.6, which is the standard devices. Either chip works fine, it is just that the NASA ones are worth more, and might be going to Mars. If you think you might have the NASA chips, send an email to i.felfrit@wp7formars.com and he will get right back to you.