Identification and verification of a sector within a block of mass storage flash memory
First Claim
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1. A storage device comprising:
- nonvolatile memory coupled to a host for storing information assigned by the host, said nonvolatile memory being organized into blocks, at least a portion of each said block being identified by a physical block address (PBA);
a memory device coupled to said nonvolatile memory for identifying a particular block having one or more rows within said nonvolatile memory in which information is, or is to be stored; and
means associated with said memory device for accessing a block identified by a PBA within said nonvolatile memory and having a block address associated therewith, said associated means accesses at least a portion of a particular PBA to read data therefrom, or to write data into the accessed block, said associated means writes the block address into two different locations within said accessed block, and upon accessing of any block within the nonvolatile memory having data stored therein, said associated means compares the block address written into the two different locations within the block and if they match, said associated means determines that the block is valid for accessing thereof.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus is disclosed for identifying a block being stored within flash memory devices using a cluster address for each block, the block being selectively erasable and having one or more sectors, the cluster address being stored in one of the sectors of the block. In an alternative embodiment, the cluster address is stored in at least two different sectors within the same block for ensuring that the information last written to the block is valid. Further disclosed is a novel way to use a defect flag for each block stored within the flash memory device for efficiently identifying non-defective blocks upon system power-up.
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Citations
3 Claims
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1. A storage device comprising:
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nonvolatile memory coupled to a host for storing information assigned by the host, said nonvolatile memory being organized into blocks, at least a portion of each said block being identified by a physical block address (PBA);
a memory device coupled to said nonvolatile memory for identifying a particular block having one or more rows within said nonvolatile memory in which information is, or is to be stored; and
means associated with said memory device for accessing a block identified by a PBA within said nonvolatile memory and having a block address associated therewith, said associated means accesses at least a portion of a particular PBA to read data therefrom, or to write data into the accessed block, said associated means writes the block address into two different locations within said accessed block, and upon accessing of any block within the nonvolatile memory having data stored therein, said associated means compares the block address written into the two different locations within the block and if they match, said associated means determines that the block is valid for accessing thereof. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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Specification