×

Increasing the memory performance of flash memory devices by writing sectors simultaneously to multiple flash memory devices

  • US 6,757,800 B1
  • Filed: 02/05/2002
  • Issued: 06/29/2004
  • Est. Priority Date: 07/31/1995
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A memory storage system for storing information organized in sectors within a nonvolatile memory bank defined by sector storage locations spanning across one or more rows of a nonvolatile memory device, each said sector including a user data portion and an overhead portion, said sectors being organized into blocks, each block identified by a virtual physical block address (PBA) and including sub-blocks, each sub-block being located in a memory device, each sector identified by a host-provided logical block address (LBA) and an actual PBA, said host-provided LBA being received by said storage device from the host for identifying a sector of information to be accessed, said actual PBA developed by said storage device for identifying a free location within said memory bank wherein said accessed sector is to be stored, said storage system comprising:

  • a memory controller coupled to said host; and

    a nonvolatile memory bank coupled to said memory controller via a memory bus, said memory bank being included in a non-volatile semiconductor memory unit, said memory bank having storage blocks including sub-blocks with corresponding sub-blocks of a block identified by the same virtual PBA and each block including a first row-portion located in said memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in said memory unit, a block being assignable based upon the identification of a free location within said memory bank for storing information, each said memory row-portions providing storage space for two or more of said sectors, said sectors each for including sector information, received from the host, said received sectors being identified by sector numbers of a predetermined order, said memory controller for writing sector information, received from the host, to a first sector location of a particular sub-block of a particular block, said memory controller for further writing sector information, received from the host, to a first sector location of a sub-block of the particular block that is other than the particular sub-block, wherein the speed of performing write operations is increased by writing a plurality of sector information to the memory device simultaneously regardless of the predetermined order of the sector numbers.

View all claims
  • 7 Assignments
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×