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flash memory
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A blue flash-memory USB drive plugged into the side port of a black laptop computer.
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flash memory

electronics
Written by
Erik Gregersen
Erik Gregersen is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, specializing in the physical sciences and technology. Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...
Erik Gregersen
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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•History

flash memory, data-storage medium used with computers and other electronic devices. Unlike previous forms of data storage, flash memory is an EEPROM (electronically erasable programmable read-only memory) form of computer memory and thus does not require a power source to retain the data. Flash memory was invented in the early 1980s by Japanese engineer Masuoka Fujio, who was then working at the Toshiba Corporation and who was searching for a technology that would replace existing...

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