Werner,

'data retention' has been discussed here sooooooo many times!! Why didn't you make a search here? Type 'data retention' into search machine and you will find the answer.

By the way: If a memory chip shows a data retention failure, then this means that ONE failure occured SOMEWHERE in the memory space. If you want to estimate the failure propability, that THIS failure occured at ONE CERTAIN memory location, you must divide failure probability by the number of all existing memory locations, in a first order approximation. So, how high now is the probability, that your bootloader will show a data retention failure???

I wonder why all the time people are thinking that right after 10 years have passed by the chip will show a failure?? Do you think, there's clock inside, and exactly after ten years 'the bad chip ghost' makes the chip becoming destroyed, by putting some acid over a memory cell? Why is it so hard to understand, that 'data retention' must be discussed in terms of statistics?

Kai