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:
Jan. 25, 2011
Filed:
Nov. 12, 2007
Robert Alan Reid, Superior, CO (US);
Robert Pierce, Danville, CA (US);
Narayanan Vinay Krishnan, San Francisco, CA (US);
Amit Bhardwaj, Bangalore, IN;
Robert Alan Reid, Superior, CO (US);
Robert Pierce, Danville, CA (US);
Narayanan Vinay Krishnan, San Francisco, CA (US);
Amit Bhardwaj, Bangalore, IN;
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
An invention is provided for wear leveling in a non-volatile memory system utilizing relative wear counters to indicate relative levels of wear for each memory block in a non-volatile memory system. Whenever a memory block is erased, the associated relative wear counter is incremented. Then, when any relative wear counter reaches a predetermined limit, the value of the lowest relative wear counter is subtracted from each relative wear counter. Thus, each relative wear counter indicates a relative wear level of the associated memory block relative to other memory blocks. In this manner, the relative wear levels are maintained while reducing the amount of memory needed to for each relative wear counter.