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:
Nov. 15, 2011
Filed:
Sep. 06, 2005
Kenichi Nakanishi, Tokyo, JP;
Nobuhiro Kaneko, Kanagawa, JP;
Kenichi Nakanishi, Tokyo, JP;
Nobuhiro Kaneko, Kanagawa, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Memory control apparatus, memory control method, and program are provided. The present invention provides a preparatory process for determining whether or not a data-updating process to update data of a flash memory or a data-writing process to write new data into the memory has been completed normally. A data-updating process to update data stored in a specific block is carried out as a process including alternate-block processing to replace the specific block with another block referred to as an alternate block. In the current data-updating process, the alternate block is examined to determine whether or not data has been erased from the alternate block. If data has been erased from the alternate block, the preceding data-updating or data-writing process is determined to be normal. By virtue of a property exhibited by the contents of the reserved-block address, the reserved-block address needs to be saved in the flash memory only once during a data-updating or data-writing process.