A Xenon flash used to freeze the Pi 2.
When a current flows through a p&n junction, photons are emitted (and an LED is just a diode that happens to emit photons at the wavelengths of visible light). And it works in both ways, if you hit a p&n junction with photons, you produce a current, not only LEDs - any diode will do that, they're all potential photodiodes, it's just that some are more sensitive than others.
You can cause a lot of chips to reset if you shine a bright beam of light to its exposed die, a common way to test chips.
It's also one reason (in addition to cost) that most diodes are sealed in plastic package, not glass package. Fun experiment: buy some 1N4148 small-signal diodes in glass package, connect it to a Darlington-pair transistor amplifier, and shoot the flashlight, you'll see some funny thing on the oscilloscope.
Putting a light-sensitive chip (I think it was a wafer-scale package with no casing) on a board that's intended for use outside of an enclosure was a really big oversight.
I agree.
Popular buzzword (Raspberry Pi), surprising unexpected outcome (most consumer electronics people are familiar with don’t react to light), manufactured outrage/schadenfreude (look how they screwed this up!)
Good analysis. In both cases, I see the popular press reports them in personified language, "Xenon Death Flash, or Why the Raspberry Pi 2 is Camera Shy", and "Why the new iPhone is Allergic to Helium". If we replace "Raspberry Pi 2" with "semiconductor p&n junctions", and replace "new iPhone" with "MEMS oscillators", it probably won't be news anymore.
> manufactured outrage/schadenfreude
An interesting case as well. I see both incidents as undesirable side-effects that better to be prevented, but I don't think they are major design flaws.
So sure, that version would get no notice.