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. 26, 2006
Filed:
Aug. 03, 2004
Joseph Herbst, Milpitas, CA (US);
Joseph Herbst, Milpitas, CA (US);
Broadcom Corporation, Irvine, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for managing defects in a memory, wherein the method includes the steps of testing a plurality of memory locations to determine an inoperable memory location and moving a memory address corresponding to the inoperable memory location to a first position in a list of available memory addresses. The method further includes the steps of incrementing an address pointer to a second position in the list of available addresses indicating a next available memory address in the list of available addresses, wherein said step of incrementing an address pointer to a second position operates to remove the memory address stored in the first position from the list of available memory addresses. The apparatus includes a memory having a predetermined number of memory locations for storing data and an address pool having a predetermined number of available memory addresses therein, each of said predetermined number of available addresses corresponding to one of the predetermined number of memory locations. An address pool controller is provided, wherein the address pool controller manages defects in the memory by removing an address from the predetermined number of available addresses when the address is identified as corresponding to an inoperable memory location.