On *nix systems shmop_open is able to create an "infinite" amount of segments when setting $key = 0.
After executing the following command twice in an interactive shell
php > $res = shmop_open(0,"n",0600,1024);
list the memory segments currently present 
$ ipcs -m
------ Shared Memory Segments --------
key        shmid      owner      perms      bytes      nattch     status
0x00000000 2293762    user       600        1024       0
0x00000000 2326531    user       600        1024       0
For any integer <> 0 in conjunction with the flag "n" shmop_open works like documented. It fails.