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:
Oct. 21, 2008
Filed:
Nov. 15, 2004
Sergey A. Gorobets, Edinburgh, GB;
Alan D. Bennett, Edinburgh, GB;
Peter J. Smith, Eskbank, GB;
Alan W. Sinclair, Candie, GB;
Kevin M. Conley, San Jose, CA (US);
Philip D. Royall, Longniddry, GB;
Sergey A. Gorobets, Edinburgh, GB;
Alan D. Bennett, Edinburgh, GB;
Peter J. Smith, Eskbank, GB;
Alan W. Sinclair, Candie, GB;
Kevin M. Conley, San Jose, CA (US);
Philip D. Royall, Longniddry, GB;
SanDisk Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A re-programmable non-volatile memory system, such as a flash EEPROM system, having its memory cells grouped into blocks of cells that are simultaneously erasable is operated in a manner to level out the wear of the individual blocks through repetitive erasing and re-programming. This may be accomplished without use of counts of the number of times the individual blocks experience erase and re-programming but such counts can optionally aid in carrying out the wear leveling process. Individual active physical blocks are chosen to be exchanged with those of an erased block pool in a predefined order.