Solid state memory device having serial input/output

Abstract

A magnetic media hard disk is emulated in a solid state hard disk having a disk controller, a data buffer, a microcontroller, and a disk emulator section. The disk emulator section includes a disk emulator interface and a memory array. The architecture of the memory array includes a number of memory banks which typically correspond to respective sectors of the emulated hard disk, but could correspond to respective groups of sectors of the emulated hard disk. Each of the memory banks has its own serial data line and its own serial clock line, and include a number of serial memory devices that connect to the bank serial data line and bank clock line with respective serial data and clock lines. Each of the serial memory devices also has a static address corresponding to a head address of the emulated hard disk. At any given time, one of the memory banks is selected by activation of its clock line based on the sector addressed, and one of the serial memory devices in the bank responds based on a comparison of its static address with head address data communicated on the serial data line. Other features described include serial memory device start sequences and bad bit replacement.