It's possible, but rare. As an example, some Samsungs had faulty eMMC chips (used in the Galaxy Nexus, SGS2 and Note 1) and certain operations when installing c

It's possible, but rare. As an example, some Samsungs had faulty eMMC chips (used in the Galaxy Nexus, SGS2 and Note 1) and certain operations when installing custom ROMs (eMMC secure erase/wipe) would trigger the infamous BrickBug that crashes the eMMC chip from next boot on. The problem was faulty eMMC firmware that Samsung later patched but never acknowledged (it was discovered by reverse engineering [1]) and worked around. [1] https://plus.google.com/+AndrewDodd/posts/Drq9uJbkGfq https://plus.google.com/+AndrewDodd/posts/Drq9uJbkGfq