ATtiny85: Accidentally applied reverse voltage

Question

Now it happened. It was dark and while I was coding I accidentally put the ATtiny85 inverted into the breadboard, so I applied +5 VDC to GND instead to VCC.

The power came from an UNO R3 which was powered by USB. Immediately after that I heard the Windows USB sound so I assume that this has caused a over-current protection to become active. I removed the cable after one or two seconds.

However, the ATtiny85 still runs fine. Can I assume from that fact it wasn't damaged and that it will still run fine even in two months? Or is it better drop it? Once the project is finished it would be not easy to replace it, but I also don't want to trash it if I can safely assume that it is fine.

Answer 1

I think if you put a DIP part into a socket wrong you actually applied +5 to GND and 0V to Vdd.

This is bad for the part and can damage or destroy it. There's no way to tell if it has been damaged in some way (say from overheating of the die). It's a cheap part, you shouldn't hesitate to bin it if failure could have any ill effects.