I've just been told by Kevin Self, of Maxim/Dallas, that, apparently, there's no way to ensure that internal FLASH isn't corrupted on power-up.

There's a new version of the silicon available that purports to fix this, and while I suspect that Kevin's statement might be an oversimplification of the situation, the pdf he sent me (unfortunately, I couldn't find a URL for it on the Maxim web site) clearly states, and I'm quoting from Kevin's email,

Here is the most important sentence of the entire letter:
"but there is no set of conditions under which this issue is guaranteed not to occur. In addition, no screening process has been identified."

Any comments?

RE