SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR WEAR LEVELING UTILIZING A RELATIVE WEAR COUNTER
First Claim
1. A method for providing wear leveling in a non-volatile memory system, the non-volatile memory system including a plurality of memory blocks and a plurality of relative wear counters associated with the memory blocks, comprising the operations of:
- incrementing a relative wear counter associated with a memory block when the memory block is erased; and
subtracting a value of a lowest relative wear counter from each relative wear counter when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An invention is provided for wear leveling in a non-volatile memory system utilizing relative wear counters to indicate relative levels of wear for each memory block in a non-volatile memory system. Whenever a memory block is erased, the associated relative wear counter is incremented. Then, when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit, the value of the lowest relative wear counter is subtracted from each relative wear counter. Thus, each relative wear counter indicates a relative wear level of the associated memory block relative to other memory blocks. In this manner, the relative wear levels are maintained while reducing the amount of memory needed to for each relative wear counter.
34 Citations
21 Claims
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1. A method for providing wear leveling in a non-volatile memory system, the non-volatile memory system including a plurality of memory blocks and a plurality of relative wear counters associated with the memory blocks, comprising the operations of:
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incrementing a relative wear counter associated with a memory block when the memory block is erased; and subtracting a value of a lowest relative wear counter from each relative wear counter when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A non-volatile memory system, comprising:
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a plurality of memory blocks; a plurality of relative wear counters, each relative wear counter being associated with a particular memory block; logic that increments a relative wear counter associated with a memory block when the memory block is erased; and logic that subtracts a value of a lowest relative wear counter from each relative wear counter when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A data structure arranged in non-volatile memory, comprising:
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a plurality of relative wear counters indicating relative wear levels of memory blocks, each relative wear counter being associated with a particular memory block in non-volatile memory, wherein a relative wear counter associated with a memory block is incremented when the memory block is erased, and wherein a value of a lowest relative wear counter is subtracted from each relative wear counter when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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Specification