but prior to rowhammer it is also possible no-one ever thought to check for it
It was known as "pattern sensitivity" in the industry for decades, basically ever since the beginning, and considered a blocking defect. Here's a random article from 1989 (don't know why first page is missing, but look at the references): http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~mazum/PAPERS-MAZUM/patternsensiti...
...and essentially said "who cares, let someone else be responsible for the imperfections while we can sell more crap", leading to the current mess we're in.
The flash memory industry took a similar dark turn decades ago.
It was known as "pattern sensitivity" in the industry for decades, basically ever since the beginning, and considered a blocking defect. Here's a random article from 1989 (don't know why first page is missing, but look at the references): http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~mazum/PAPERS-MAZUM/patternsensiti...
Then some bastards like these came along...
https://research.ece.cmu.edu/safari/thesis/skhan_jobtalk_sli...
...and essentially said "who cares, let someone else be responsible for the imperfections while we can sell more crap", leading to the current mess we're in.
The flash memory industry took a similar dark turn decades ago.