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:
Aug. 24, 2010
Filed:
Nov. 14, 2005
Alan David Bennett, Edinburgh, GB;
Alan Douglas Bryce, Warnbro, AU;
Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets, Edinburgh, GB;
Alan David Bennett, Edinburgh, GB;
Alan Douglas Bryce, Warnbro, AU;
Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets, Edinburgh, GB;
SanDisk Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention presents a number of improvements for managing erase processes in non-volatile memory. Such memory systems typically manage the memory by logically organize the basic unit of physical erase (erase block) into composite logical groupings (meta-blocks or logical group), where an erase block generally consists of a number of sectors. When an erase command is received, the specified sectors are checked against the memory system's control data. If the specified sectors span any full logical grouping, the full logical groupings can each be treated as a whole and erased according to one process (such as performing a true, physical erase), while other sectors are 'logically' erased at the sector level by standard techniques.