Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Takeshi Otsuka

Masatoshi Taniguchi

Hideaki Yamashita

Haruo Ohta

Hirofumi Uchida

Nobukatsu Okuda

Shinya Tanaka

Tatsushi Bannai

Masahiro Yamada

Masaru Higashionji

Hiroshi Saito

Hiroshi Yohda

Keiichi Ishida

Masanori Mitsuzumi

Hirofuni Uchida

Toshiyuki Kohri

A recording medium to be used by being connected to a digital device includes a local bus, a plurality of recording units, an information storage unit, and a communication unit. The local bus has a plurality of switches or bridges. The plurality of recording units are connected to the local bus. The information storage unit stores information indicating a bus configuration of the local bus. The communication unit is used for transferring the information to and from the digital device. After the recording medium is inserted into the digital device, the bus configuration of the local bus is reconstructed based on the information acquired from the communication unit via the information storage unit by the digital device.

Recording medium, adapter, and information processing apparatus

The memory card includes a non-volatile memory, an internal memory, a bus converter, and a media controller. The non-volatile memory is rewritable. The internal memory is configured to divide data transferred from a host into M (M is an integer of 2 or more) segments each of which including N (N is a natural number) times a minimum transfer unit of the non-volatile memory as a unit to record. The bus converter is configured to output 1/M of the minimum transfer unit of data in parallel from each of the M segments recorded in the internal memory. The media controller is configured to integrate 1/M of data belonging to each of different segments input in parallel from the bus converter as one minimum transfer unit of data to record in the non-volatile memory.

Memory card

A recording device includes a plurality of storage modules and a recording controller. With respect to a writing request, the recording controller generates parity data and writes data in the respective plurality of modules by dividing the data. When an error is detected with respect to a reading request, data of the error is restored from data and the parity data read from other recording modules. With respect to an initialization request of the storage module, the storage module to be initialized is specified from the plurality of storage modules, and an address conversion table is initialized. Moreover, identification information for identifying the initialized storage module is held. With respect to a request for cancelling the table initialization request of the storage module, reading of data from the storage module corresponding to the held identification information is processed as an error.

Recording device and information processing device

A technique of the present invention includes a storage section for storing contents data and an encryption flag indicating that any one of an encryption recording mode and a non-encryption recording mode is set, an encrypting engine for encrypting contents data using an encryption key when the encryption recording mode is set, and a control section for controlling a storage section so that the encryption key and the encrypted contents data are stored when the encryption recording mode is set. Further, when the setting is changed from the encryption recording mode into the non-encryption recording mode, the control section controls the storage section so that the encryption flag is changed to indicate the setting of the non-encryption recording mode with the continuous storage of the encryption key.

Portable recording medium, system including the portable recording medium, and data recovery method of the portable recording medium

Card detection pin and input pin configured to receive an interface reset signal are connected to each other in a high-speed data transfer memory card. A memory card control device noncompliant with the memory card initializes the interface reset signal to a memory card to a second electric potential, and then when the memory card control device detects a first electric potential of the card detection pin of the memory card, the memory card control device determines that the memory card is mounted. When the memory card is mounted in such a memory card control device, the memory card control device does not detect the mounting of the memory card, and thus does not start subsequent operation such as driving the interface reset signal to the first electric potential and supplying electric power to the memory card.

Interface configuration for a memory card and memory card control device

An interface selection unit physically determines whether or not a memory card is compatible with a first transfer mode, based on the result of signal exchange with the memory card via a first interface unit, to select a first interface unit or a second interface unit. If the second interface unit is selected, a memory card control unit performs an initialization process to cause the memory card to be accessible via the second interface unit, and thereafter, logically determines whether or not the memory card is compatible with the first transfer mode, based on information read from the memory card.

Memory card controller and host device including the same

An information recording system includes a recording medium capable of limiting a function by password and an information recording device for controlling the recording medium. The recording medium stores an input password, counts updating event(s) of a password, stores the update count of the password, outputs information stored in the password related information storage according to a READ request issued from the information recording device, compares a input password with a password stored in the password register, limits a predetermined function of the recording medium according to the comparison result from the password comparator. The information recording device stores a password and a password identification ID which is associated with the update count of the password, selects a password with reference to the update count of the password and the password identification ID and outputs the selected password into the recording medium to compare the passwords.

Information recording device, recording medium, and information recording system

A memory card controller includes a receiver, a flow controller, a continuity determination unit, and a command controller. When size of data transferred from the memory card reaches transfer size specified by first read command, the command controller controls the flow controller to transmit a response representing a transfer busy state, and pauses a transfer operation of the memory card. When the receiver receives a second read command in a state that the transfer operation of the memory card is paused, the command controller controls the flow controller to transmit a response representing transfer ready state to the transfer authorization request from the memory card so as to restart a transfer operation of the memory card.

Memory card controller, memory card adaptor and memory card drive

Included are a flash memory onto which user data and parity data are recorded, an external interface unit which receives a first write command for instructing recording of the user data onto the flash memory, and a block managing unit which manages management information indicating whether parity data is valid or invalid. When the user data related to the first write command received through the external interface unit is recorded onto the flash memory, the block managing unit updates the management information so as to indicate that the parity data corresponding to the user data is invalid.

Semiconductor recording device, control method of semiconductor recording device, and semiconductor recording system

An information recording and reproducing apparatus writes user data received from an external device into a recording medium and reads the user data from the recording medium so as to transmit the user data to the external terminal. The information recording and reproducing apparatus includes an external interface unit operable to transmit and receive the user data to and from the external device, a first ECC generator operable to generate parity data corresponding to the user data, an access unit operable to control recording and reading of the user data or the parity data to and from the recording medium, a recording controller operable to record the user data and the first parity data to the recording medium via the access unit, an ECC correcting unit operable to correct an error of the user data read from the recording medium using the parity data read from a nonvolatile memory via the access unit, and a reproducing controller having a first reproducing mode for reading and reproducing the user data without reading the parity data from the recording medium at the time of reproducing data and a second reproducing mode for reading and reproducing at least the parity data from the recording medium, the reproducing controller operable to detect presence or non-presence of an error of the user data read from the recording medium during execution of the first reproducing mode and executing the second reproducing mode when the presence of an error is detected.

Information recording and reproducing apparatus for writing user data received from an external device to a recording medium using generated parity data corresponding to the user data

A semiconductor storage device, includes a plurality of flash memories and a controller for the flash memories. The flash memory includes a data cache operable to hold data for at least one record page in writing, the flash memory includes a plurality of erasure blocks each having a plurality of record pages, the record page is classified into a first record page and a second record page of which write time is longer than a write time of the first record page, and the controller for the flash memories is configured to: divide the plurality of flash memories into at least two groups; perform write control by interleaving data in the groups for each record page; determine whether a page to be written data is of the first record page or the second record page; and when it is determined that the page to be written data is the first record page, after a lapse of a first predetermined time from start of writing data of one of the groups, the controller starts writing data of another one of the groups, and when it is determined that the page to be written data is the second record page, after a lapse of a second predetermined time being longer than the first predetermined time from start of writing data of one of the groups, the controller starts writing data of another one of the groups.

Semiconductor storage device with a plurality of memories divided into groups and a controller that performs write control by interleaving data between the groups

A semiconductor recording device includes: flash memories including a plurality of physical blocks each including a plurality of pages; an external interface unit which receives data to be recorded on the flash memories; a first ECC generation unit which generates a first ECC code by adding parity data to the data; a data writing unit which records the data based on the first ECC code into the pages in the flash memories; and a page shuffling unit which controls assignment of a symbol of the first ECC code to the pages, and the page shuffling unit controls the assignment of the symbol of the first ECC code such that the symbol of the first ECC code is assigned to pages having at least two page numbers in the physical blocks included in a group.

Semiconductor recording device and semiconductor recording device control method

To guarantee a data transfer rate irrespective of a performance of a memory card. A parameter to show a data transfer efficiency is previously recorded in a recording mediumin which data is written per data size that can be increased and decreased stepwise and the data transfer efficiency is variable in accordance with the data size. Next, a data accessing apparatusissues a parameter acquisition command to the recording medium. The recording mediumwhich received the parameter acquisition command transmits the parameter. The data accessing apparatuscollates the received parameter with the data transfer efficiency required in the data to be written/read to thereby select an optimum data size. Then, the data accessing apparatuswrites/reads the data to the recording mediumbased on the selected optimum data size.

Data accessing method, device in which the data accessing method is executed and recording medium

A memory card is equipped in a host apparatus and used for data recording. The memory card has a built-in flash memory and an internal ROM, and there is prestored a predetermined writable block size corresponding to a certain integral multiple of a size of an erase block. A write block size of a write command is issued by the host apparatus. The data size is detected and compared to the writable block size, so as to decide whether the write block size is an integral multiple of the writable block size, thereby judging whether write is permitted. Only when the write is permitted, data is written from the host apparatus into the memory card. If the write is not permitted, a response to inform an error is returned to the host apparatus.

Memory card able to guarantee a recoding rate and memory card system using the memory card

A reproduced signal processor comprising sync block detecting means (), data information generating means (), first memory means (), memory writing means (), memory reading means () for parallel reading data of n frames (n is an integer of 2 or more satisfying &#x3b1;&#x3c;n) stored in the first memory means (), and transferring means () for transferring n pieces of transfer data after restructuring n pieces of frame data read out by the memory reading means () according to the data information or not restructuring them.

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Hyogo, Japan

Takeshi Otsuka