Flash memory management system and apparatus

• US 8,046,523 B2
• Filed: 02/13/2007
• Issued: 10/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Park, Kyu-ho, Lim, Seung-ho, Hwang, Joo-young
• Primary Examiner(s): Bragdon; Reginald
• Assistant Examiner(s): BERNARD, DANIEL J
• Application Number:
  US11/705,430
• Publication Number:
  US 20070192534A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,715 Days
• Field of Search: 711/103, 707/200, 707/205
• US Class Current: 711/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]

Abstract

Provided are a flash memory management apparatus and method which divide blocks of a memory into data blocks and i-node blocks and respectively specify storage paths of data, which is stored in the data blocks, in the i-node blocks in order to easily access pieces of the data by searching the i-node blocks. The flash memory management apparatus includes a map search module searching for a map block located at a preset position of a memory among blocks that form the memory and extracting storage paths of one or more i-node blocks; a path search module searching for storage paths of data specified in the i-node blocks based on the extraction result; and a data management module accessing the data through a storage path of the data and performs a transaction on the data.

Claims

1. A flash memory management apparatus comprising:

a map search module which searches for a map block, which comprises pages comprising storage paths of i-node blocks and a first flag indicating whether the storage paths of the i-node blocks have been updated, and is located at a position of a memory among blocks that form the memory, and extracts the storage paths of the i-node blocks from the map block if the storage paths of the i-node blocks are specified in the map block, based on the first flag;

a path search module which searches for storage paths of data specified in the i-node blocks based on an extraction result of the map search module; and

a data management module which accesses the data through a storage path of the data and performs a transaction on the data,

wherein each i-node block comprises a page comprising storage paths of pieces of the data and, if the storage paths of the i-node blocks are not specified in the map block, based on the first flag, the path search module extracts the pages included in the i-node blocks and searches for a storage path of the data included in a data region of the extracted pages, and

wherein one of a direct reference i-node and an indirect reference i-node is assigned for the data according to file sizes of the data.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the blocks that form the memory further comprise at least one of:

the i-node blocks; and

data blocks, wherein each of the data blocks comprises pages which store the data.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the path search module extracts the page included in each of the i-node blocks with reference to a second flag indicating a block type, which is included in a spare region of a page located at a head of each block of the memory.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the page included in each of the i-node blocks includes one of:

a direct reference i-node page specifying a storage path of a piece of data; and

an indirect reference i-node page specifying a storage path of a page which comprises storage paths of a plurality of pieces of data.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the map block comprises a block located at a head of the memory.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a map update module which updates the storage paths of the i-node blocks included in the map block.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the map block comprises at least one of:

a list of the storage paths of the i-node blocks;

a number of i-node blocks; and

sizes of the i-node blocks.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the transaction comprises at least one of reading, writing, generating and erasing operations on the data.

9. A flash memory management method comprising:

searching for a map block, which comprises pages comprising storage paths of i-node blocks and a first flag indicating whether the storage paths of the i-node blocks have been updated, and is located at a position of a memory among blocks that form the memory;

extracting the storage paths of the i-node blocks from the map block, if the storage paths of the i-node blocks are specified in the map block, based on the first flag;

searching for storage paths of data specified in the i-node blocks based on a result of the extracting;

accessing the data through a storage path of the data; and

performing a transaction on the data,

wherein each i-node block comprises pages comprising storage paths of pieces of the data and the searching for the storage paths of data comprises;

extracting the pages included in the i-node blocks if the storage paths of the i-node blocks are not specified in the map block, based on the first flag; and

searching for a storage path of data included in a data region of the extracted pages,

wherein one of a direct reference i-node and an indirect reference i-node is assigned for the data according to file sizes of the data.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the blocks that form the memory further comprise at least one of:

the i-node blocks; and

data blocks, wherein each of the data blocks comprises pages which store the pieces of data.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the extracting the pages comprises extracting the page included in each of the i-node blocks with reference to a second flag indicating a block type, which is included in a spare region of a page located at a head of each block of the memory.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the page included in each of the i-node blocks includes one of:

a direct reference i-node page specifying a storage path of a piece of data; and

an indirect reference i-node page specifying a storage path of a page which comprises storage paths of a plurality of pieces of data.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the map block comprises a block located at a head of the memory.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

updating the storage paths of the i-node blocks included in the map block.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the map block comprises at least one of:

a list of the storage paths of the i-node blocks;

a number of i-node blocks; and

sizes of the i-node blocks.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the transaction comprises at least one of reading, writing, generating and erasing operations on the data.