The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Sep. 03, 1996

Filed:

Apr. 13, 1995
Applicant:
Inventors:

Winnie K Lau, Shapin, HK;

Richard Malinowski, Placerville, CA (US);

Assignee:

LSI Logic Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G11C / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
36518901 ; 36518905 ; 36523003 ;
Abstract

This invention relates to an improved memory storage system which allows selective ranges of memory locations, which can also be referred to as virtual memory banks, to be enabled and disabled. The ranges of memory locations can be disabled to avoid refreshing unused memory location and to eliminate faulty memory locations. Also, the ranges of memory locations can be treated as blocks or banks of memory regardless of the physical chips used to store the data. In other words, if a memory bank has a capacity of 16 MB, the range of memory locations may be a portion of the total capacity of this memory bank, for example 8 MB or 4 MB, and the remainder of the memory bank can be unaffected or be the subject of another range of memory locations. In a preferred embodiment, the ranges of memory locations is at least 2 MB in size.


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