Actually, you can reset the memory, but the problem is still there waiting for you to encounter the same conditions. 
To be technically correct, it's not the chip that gets scrambled, but rather the parameter memory on the board. The actual removable chip is strictly a read-only chip.
The reason most folks just buy the replacement chip is simply economics, if you're going to spend the money, you might as well get the chip that insures it will never happen again.
