QUOTE(biscoito @ Jun 18 2010, 10:40 PM)

Why can't they just make the DVD Drive with the firmware inside a ROM chip ? Is ROM memory really that much more expensive than FLASH ?
I don't know if your question has been answered, but I'll answer it for you. Yes, ROM is much more expensive than Flash. Also, if you only get 1 shot with ROM, if they write to a ROM chip and it is corrupted somewhere, you can't erase and try again, and since the ROM chip is inside of the controller chip, that controller chip is useless, and since the controller chip is soldered onto the PCB when they write to it, they're not going to desolder it and solder a new one on, so if a ROM write fails, the whole PCB and all parts included are scrapped.
Also, you can't recycle ROM, for instance, if the 360 dies, but the DVD drive is still good, they can erase and flash a new DVD key and put it in a refurb 360, if it is ROM, it will only ever work with 1 Xbox, unless of course they would change the DVD key of the 360 motherboard, but that's more complicated and time consuming than changing that of the DVD drive's (assuming it's a flash chip).
What I think Mediatek/Microsoft should do is this, now I don't know how feasible it is, but *assuming* this is a flash chip and *assuming* it's exploitable, the next step, other than going full ROM, is using an internal EEPROM for the DVD key, and an internal ROM chip for the firmware. Even if you could read out and erase and rewrite the EEPROM, you could only ever swap DVD drives, you could never rewrite the firmware with hacked firmware because it's on a ROM chip. The *worst* you could do would be to read the key, and then flash that key into a currently exploitable drive, aka any current LiteOn, BenQ, Samsung, or Shitachi, and use that, but that would drive up the prices of replacement drives. Either way, it would be bad for MS, but not as bad as the 'put everything in flash' option which they've currently been using and which currently hasn't worked out. Honestly, I think 100% ROM is the best idea, but if they want some type of recyclability and some type of reusability but with the ROM security, I say ROM/EEPROM is the best shot. But my bets...this new D4S, it has a flash, with the FW and key on it, and it's SOMEHOW not perfect, otherwise, why would they put the glue on? You know the glue costs money, so if it wasn't worth the cost why would they implement it?