Sandisk Corporation

Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Longitude Flash Memory Systems S.à R.l.

Carlos J Gonzalez

Kevin M Conley

Daniel C Guterman

Fabrice Jogand-Coulomb

Joerg U Ferchau

Andrew John Tomlin

Edwin J Cuellar

Eli Harari

Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets

Alan David Bennett

Robert C Miller

Bahman Qawami

Yoram Cedar

Charles Michael Schroter

Alan Douglas Bryce

Susan A Cannon

Milton Lourenco Barrocas

Ronald LaPedis

Farshid Sabet-Shargi

Mark Sompel

Jian Feng Chen

Joel Bernard Jacobs

Steven Theodore Sprouse

Manuel Antonio d'Abreu

Stephen L Skala

Ron Barzilai

Reuven Elhamias

Dhaval Parikh

Jian Chen

Fabrice Jagond-Coulomb

A non-volatile memory system of a type having blocks of memory cells erased together and which are programmable from an erased state in units of a large number of pages per block. If the data of only a few pages of a block are to be updated, the updated pages are written into another block provided for this purpose. Updated pages from multiple blocks are programmed into this other block in an order that does not necessarily correspond with their original address offsets. The valid original and updated data are then combined at a later time, when doing so does not impact on the performance of the memory. If the data of a large number of pages of a block are to be updated, however, the updated pages are written into an unused erased block and the unchanged pages are also written to the same unused block. By handling the updating of a few pages differently, memory performance is improved when small updates are being made. The memory controller can dynamically create and operate these other blocks in response to usage by the host of the memory system.

Management of non-volatile memory systems having large erase blocks

The embodiments described herein generally use a challenge to protect a removable mobile flash memory storage device, where the challenge may be in the form of a 'Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart' ('CAPTCHA'). In one embodiment, a method is provided in which a removable mobile flash memory storage device receives a command from a host device, generates a CAPTCHA challenge, provides the CAPTCHA challenge to the host device, receives a response to the CAPTCHA challenge from the host device, determines if the response satisfies the CAPTCHA challenge, and performs the command only if the response satisfies the CAPTCHA challenge. In another embodiment, a removable mobile flash memory storage device is provided for performing these acts.

Method for using a CAPTCHA challenge to protect a removable mobile flash memory storage device

A method for displaying advertisement content is provided. The method includes, launching an application from a removable memory device with a plurality of non-volatile memory cells and a controller including a processor, wherein the application is launched when the removable memory device interfaces with a host system; launching a display window on a display device that is controlled by the application; and displaying advertisement content on the display window, real-time from a server or offline using the advertisement content stored on the removable memory device.

Methods for displaying advertisement content on host system using application launched from removable memory device

A removable memory device is provided. The device includes a plurality of re-programmable non-volatile memory cells; and a controller including a processor and a controller memory, wherein an application is launched from the removable memory device and executed on a host system when the removable memory device interfaces with the host system, and the application launches a display window on a display device, wherein the display window is controlled by the application and is used to display advertisement content that is stored in the plurality of memory cells or from a server that is accessible by the host system.

Removable memory devices for displaying advertisement content on host systems using applications launched from removable memory devices

A non-volatile memory system of a type having blocks of memory cells erased together and which are programmable from an erased state in units of a large number of pages per block. If the data of only a few pages of a block are to be updated, the updated pages are written into another block provided for this purpose. The valid original and updated data are then combined at a later time, when doing so does not impact on the performance of the memory. If the data of a large number of pages of a block are to be updated, however, the updated pages are written into an unused erased block and the unchanged pages are also written to the same unused block. By handling the updating of a few pages differently, memory performance is improved when small updates are being made.

A memory using techniques to extract the data content of its storage elements, when the distribution of stored states is degraded, is presented. If the distribution of stored states has degraded, secondary evaluations of the memory cells are performed using modified read conditions. Based upon the results of these supplemental evaluations, the memory device determines the read conditions at which to best decide the data stored.

Methods of cell population distribution assisted read margining

A portable mass storage device is used to store large files such as digital pictures, movies and music. The mass storage device has firmware with security mechanisms that limit access to read write operations to ensure reliable operation of the device to prevent unwanted copying or storing of secure content such a copyrighted material. Although the security mechanisms generally limit access, the firmware is operable to work with a virtual machine and allows the virtual machine to access the secure content and work in conjunction with the firmware to read and write data to the mass storage memory, if the virtual machine is present. The virtual machine is either loaded but not activated at the time of manufacture, or is downloaded and activated post manufacture. Any royalty for the virtual machine is paid for only if and when the virtual machine is both present and activated in the device.

Portable mass storage device with virtual machine activation

In a particular embodiment, at a controller coupled to a memory array, a method includes receiving an indication that a first group of data bits read from the memory array includes errors that are uncorrectable by an error correction coding (ECC) engine. A count of the first group of data bits having a particular bit value may be compared to a prior count of data bits having the particular bit value. In response to determining that the count exceeds the prior count, a bit of the first group of data bits that has the particular bit value and that corresponds to a same memory cell as a corrected data bit of a second group of data bits is identified. A value of the identified bit of the first group may be changed to generate an adjusted group of data bits. The adjusted group of data bits may be provided to the ECC engine.

System and method to correct data errors using a stored count of bit values

In a non-volatile memory storage system such as a flash EEPROM system, a controller switches the manner in which data sectors are mapped into blocks and metablocks of the memory in response to host programming and controller data consolidation patterns, in order to improve performance and reduce wear. Data are programmed into the memory with different degrees of parallelism.

Adaptive mode switching of flash memory address mapping based on host usage characteristics

A portable mass storage device for use in two factor authentication systems and methods. A secure portable mass storage device protects content from being freely copied with security mechanisms and firmware. The security functionality also protects confidential user credentials and passwords, as well as algorithms and seeds needed for two factor authentication or asymmetric authentication methods. A client application residing in the mass storage device acts as both a password manager and an authentication manager that seamlessly performs the authentication procedures in the background while signing a user into various institutions of his choosing. A very high level of security is integrated into a mass storage device the user has for purposes other than two factor authentication, and the convenience of highly secure password management also comes in a convenient pocket sized package easy for the user to transport. This facilitates the acceptance of two factor authentication, and increases security for a wide variety of online transactions.

Mass storage device with automated credentials loading

The present invention presents techniques for the linking of physical blocks of a non-volatile memory into composite logical structures or 'metablocks'. After determining an initial linking of good physical blocks into metablocks, a record of the linking is maintained in the non-volatile memory where it can be readily accessed when needed. In one set of embodiments, the initially linking is deterministically formed according to an algorithm and can be optimized according to the pattern of any bad blocks in the memory. As additional bad blocks arise, the linking is updated using by replacing the bad blocks in a linking with good blocks, preferably in the same sub-array of the memory as the block that they are replacing.

Adaptive deterministic grouping of blocks into multi-block units

In order to maintain the integrity of data stored in a flash memory that are susceptible to being disturbed by operations in adjacent regions of the memory, disturb events cause the data to be read, corrected and re-written before becoming so corrupted that valid data cannot be recovered. The sometimes conflicting needs to maintain data integrity and system performance are balanced by deferring execution of some of the corrective action when the memory system has other high priority operations to perform. In a memory system utilizing very large units of erase, the corrective process is executed in a manner that is consistent with efficiently rewriting an amount of data much less than the capacity of a unit of erase.

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Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Carlos J Gonzalez