Renesas Technology Corp.

Mitsubishi Electric Semiconductor Application Engineering Corporation

Hironao Nagayoshi

Shinichi Ishimoto

A flash memory includes an address information storage and a data write unit. The address information storage records address information about blank areas in a cluster consisting of a plurality of sectors. The data write unit writes, in response to a write request of data, data into at least one of the blank areas by referring to the address information about the blank areas. This makes it possible to solve a problem that occurs with a conventional flash memory. In particular, the number of erasable times of the improved flash memory is not limited to about one tenth of that of an EEPROM, and hence the improved flash memory can store frequently rewritten data.

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Tokyo, Japan

Hironao Nagayoshi