“The self-destructing chip was demonstrated last Thursday at DARPA’s Wait, What? event in St. Louis. Research into the chip was funded as it qualified for of DARPA’s vanishing programmable resources project. It is envisaged that the chip could carry sensitive data, such as encryption keys, and if it fell into enemy hands it could be commanded to shatter irrecoverably, into thousands of pieces.”
http://hexus.net/ce/news/gadgets/86453-xerox-parc-chip-self-destructs-command-funded-darpa/
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/584274/xerox-parc-new-chip-will-self-destruct-10-seconds/
There are some videos from the DARPA event here:
Firmware Security 