Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Hyunseob Lee

Moonwook Oh

Du-won Hong

A nonvolatile memory device includes user blocks and reserved blocks. A ratio of the number of used reserved blocks among the reserved blocks during a predetermined period to an operation count during the predetermined period is calculated by a memory controller and an end of lifetime warning signal is transmitted to an external device based on the calculated ratio. Bad blocks among the user blocks are replaced by one or more of the reserved blocks. If at least one block among the user blocks becomes a bad block, the memory controller replaces the bad block with any one of the reserved blocks, and the reserved block used indicates a reserved block replaced with at least one of the user blocks. The operation count can be an erase count or a program count of the nonvolatile memory device, or a time count indicating usage time.

Growing community of inventors

Ansan-si, South Korea

Hyunseob Lee