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.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 01, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 16, 1995
Mickey Lee Fandrich, Placerville, CA (US);
Richard Joseph Durante, Citrus Heights, CA (US);
Geoffrey Alan Gould, El Dorado Hills, CA (US);
Timothy Wade Goodell, Elk Grove, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method of prioritizing program commands relative to erase commands in an operation queue for a memory includes the step of initiating an erase of a first block for a first erase command in the operation queue. The memory has a status indicator for each block. The status indicator indicates whether an erase command for its corresponding block has been received and removed from the operation queue but not yet executed (e.g., an absorbed erase command). An interrupt window is executed during the erasure of the first block to determine if the operation queue has received a second command for a second block. If the second command is a program command, then one of three steps is executed. If the first and second blocks are the same, then execution of the program command is deferred until after the erasure of the first block is complete. If the first and second blocks are not the same then the program command is either executed or deferred in accordance with the status indicator for the second block. If the status indicator for the second block indicates that it has been absorbed (e.g., it is set), then execution of the program command will be deferred until after the erasure of the first block is complete. Otherwise, if the status indicator for the second block indicates that it has not been absorbed (e.g. not set), then the erasure of the first block will be interrupted to execute the program command.