Micron Technology Incorporated

Mark Jahn

Wanmo Wong

Frank J Sepulveda

Methods of operating non-volatile memory devices including dividing the non-volatile memory device into a plurality of sequentially addressed clusters, wherein each cluster contains a plurality of sequentially addressed logical blocks, and where at least one cluster of the plurality of sequentially addressed clusters addresses a different number of sequentially addressed logical blocks than another one of the clusters of the plurality of sequentially addressed clusters.

Cluster based non-volatile memory translation layer

An improved non-volatile memory and logical block to physical block address translation method utilizing a cluster based addressing scheme is detailed. The translation of logical blocks/sectors to the physical blocks/sectors is necessary for a non-volatile memory to appear as a freely rewriteable device to a system or processor. Embodiments of the present invention utilize cluster based address translation to translate logical block addresses to physical block addresses, wherein each cluster contains a plurality of sequentially addressed logical blocks. This allows the use of a smaller RAM table for the address translation lookup and/or faster scanning of the memory device or memory subsystem for the matching cluster address. In one embodiment, a specially formatted cluster is utilized for frequently updated sectors/logical blocks, where the cluster stores a single logical block and a new sequential physical block of the cluster is written in turn with each update.

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Hollister, CA, United States of America

Mark Jahn