(and yes contrary to what you may think some of us are aware of such self destruct mechanism. The one I msotly know of are on chip, but you CANNOT compare that).
Just to clarify a bit about the chip & "self destruct" stuff.
For one, high-security employ different anti-tempering techniques. A very common and widely used method is to put a mesh above the die, which carries some signals. So to get to the die you have to destroy the mesh, rendering the chip "unusable" in theory. Of course, with a proper microscope, steady hand and very, very thin wire you can bypass that feature.
The other "method" pretty much comes naturally. Anyone remember the gold old EPROM's that you erased with UV light, or for that matter old microcontrollers which were erased that way? Well, guess what: Regular flash-memory cells are sensitive to UV as well. So, if you have a programmable device and decap it down to the die, and then expose it to UV, it will erase.
Same applies to security "fuses" that you program to prohibit reading back the contents. However, those "fuses" are often handled a bit more special, in particular they are covered by metal to make erasing them by UV harder. Another method is to change the behaviuor of the fuse. Lets say "unprotected" means logical 1, and "protected" means logical 0. Usually an UV erased bit will flip to 1. Just change that logic, so that an UV erased bit will still "protect" it.
Here you can see a more detailed explanation, if you are interested (i recommend the whole site in fact, quite a lot of interesting stuff if you are into that sort of stuff)
OK, enough off-topic
So, no, as far as i am aware of, there is no "self destruct" in chips. Just that the memory cells can be erased by light if exposed. But then, no problem with working under yellow, red, whatever light. Like with any regular dark-room for photo stuff
Greetings,
Chris
