Why do solid-state drives even have a limited number of read/write cycles, usually 100,000-300,000 cycles?
For hard-disk drives, it is understandable why they wear out. That is because they have moving parts that are in contact with each other. That means they have abrasion, which ultimately wears out the bearings.
However, SSDs do not have any moving parts. That means there no abrasion at all. Also, SSDs are made out of inorganic glass or ceramic, more specifically silicon metalloid doped with other elements. In chemistry, I learned that glasses and ceramics have a very simple chemical composition with their structure tightly held together by strong atomic bonds. Glasses and ceramics are distinguished between each other because the former has a disordered structure, known as amorphous, while the latter has an ordered structure, known as crystalline. Because of how highly stable they are, they do not change at all under there is an super high-energy event from an external source that causes the bond to break, such as a macroscopic force cracking the material, high temperatures melting the material, or super corrosive chemicals. Similarly, a few days ago, I did an Internet search confirming my suspicions that solid-state ceramic and glass capacitors last forever under normal operation because they do not age at all within design limits.
That contrasts with organic chemicals such as polymers. In chemistry, I learned that polymers are made up of hugely complex, varying molecules that are not inert and are only weakly held between each other by weak van der Waals forces. If a bond breaks within a molecule for example, the original molecule will almost certainly not reform. That is because there are so many possible different atoms to form new bonds with, so the original bond will almost certainly not be reinstated due to probability. Because they are unstable, they self-react, which causes them to self-destruct over time. That is greatly accelerated by external high-energy sources such as ultraviolet rays. Since electronic components such as OLEDs, liquid/gel-electrolyte lithium-ion batteries, and electrolytic capacitors are made at least partially out of polymers, that is why they break down over time.
So, shouldn't inorganic SSDs last forever (geological timescales) when its design parameters are never exceeded under operation, such as never having a power surge? Electrical conductivity is a property of electronic components (of which the transistor is a specific type, more specifically SSD bit cell), just like visible light conductivity is a property of glass. Passing light through glass never wears out glass given that it does not overheat, so shouldn't passing electric current through an inorganic SSD never wear out the SSD given that it never overheats or has dielectric breakdown?
