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:
Mar. 07, 2006
Filed:
Apr. 05, 2004
Song-ho Yoon, Bucheon-si, KR;
Jang-hwan Kim, Seoul, KR;
Bum-soo Kim, Sungnam-si, KR;
Tae-sun Chung, Seoul, KR;
Ji-hyun IN, Seoul, KR;
Song-ho Yoon, Bucheon-si, KR;
Jang-hwan Kim, Seoul, KR;
Bum-soo Kim, Sungnam-si, KR;
Tae-sun Chung, Seoul, KR;
Ji-hyun In, Seoul, KR;
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Gyeonggi-do, KR;
Abstract
A method and an apparatus for managing bad blocks generated while a flash memory is being used. A method for managing a bad block in a flash memory includes (a) allocating a used area having a plurality of used blocks and a spare area having a plurality of spare blocks in the flash memory, and providing a block map page group including a plurality of block map pages in which mapping information to map a bad block generated in either of the used area or the spare block to a spare block, (b) having mapping information of the block map page reside among the block map page groups in the memory, and (c) mapping the bad block generated during a flash operation to an unused spare block found through the mapping information, updating the mapping information, and recording the updated mapping information on the block map page.