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Title: US7610438: Flash-memory card for caching a hard disk drive with data-area toggling of pointers stored in a RAM lookup table
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Country: US United States of America

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31 pages

 
Inventor: Lee, Charles C.; Cupertino, CA, United States of America
Yu, I-Kang; Palo Alto, CA, United States of America
Lee, Edward W.; Mountain View, CA, United States of America
Shen, Ming-Shiang; Taipei Hsien, Taiwan

Assignee: Super Talent Electronics, Inc., San Jose, CA, United States of America
other patents from SUPER TALENT ELECTRONICS, INC. (849512) (approx. 1)
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Published / Filed: 2009-10-27 / 2007-01-17

Application Number: US2007000623860

IPC Code: Advanced: G06F 12/06;
Core: more...

ECLA Code: G06F12/08B12; S06F12/02D2E2; S06F12/08B2;

U.S. Class: 711/103; 711/113;

Field of Search: Non/00e

Priority Number:
2007-01-17  US2007000623860
2000-01-06  US2000000478720
2004-10-01  US2004000956826
2004-02-26  US2004000789333

Abstract:     A flash-memory cache card caches data that a host writes to a hard disk drive. A flash-memory array has physical blocks of flash memory arranged into first and second data areas having M blocks each, and a wear-leveling-counter pool. An incoming logical sector address (LSA) from a host is mapped to one of M entries in a RAM lookup table using a hash of modulo M. The RAM entry stores a mapping to a physical block in a foreground area that is either the first or the second data area. Pages in the physical block are read for a matching LSA that indicates a cache hit. Full pages are written back to the hard disk and erased in the background while the other data area becomes the foreground area. A new physical block with a low wear-level count is selected from blocks in the new foreground area.

Attorney, Agent or Firm: Auvinen, Stuart T. ; gPatent LLC ;

Primary / Asst. Examiners: Thai, Tuan V; Dinh, Ngoc V

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Related Applications:
Application Number Filed Patent Pub. Date  Title
US2000000478720 2000-01-06    2007-08-14  Electronic data storage medium with fingerprint verification capability
US2004000956826 2004-10-01    2007-11-20  Memory flash card reader employing an indexing scheme
US2004000789333 2004-02-26    2008-01-08  Managing flash memory including recycling obsolete sectors


       
Parent Case: RELATED APPLICATION
    This application is a continuation-in-part (CIP) of the application for “Electronic Data Storage Medium with Fingerprint Verification Capability”, U.S. Ser. No. 09/478,720 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,257,714), filed Jan. 6, 2000. This application is also a CIP of “USB Card Reader”, U.S. Ser. No. 10/956,826 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,299,826), filed Oct. 1, 2004, which is a CIP of “System and Method for Controlling Flash Memory”, U.S. Ser. No. 10/789,333 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,318,117), filed Feb. 26, 2004.

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First Claim:
Show all 21 claims
    1. A flash-memory cache sub-system comprising:

a flash-memory array of physical blocks of flash memory identified by a physical-block address (PBA), a physical block having a plurality of pages, a page having a data sector that can be written with arbitrary data only once before requiring an erase of the physical block;

wherein the data sector is block-addressable and not randomly-addressable, wherein all bytes of the data sector are accessible together as a block an not accessible as individual bytes;

a first data area formed from first physical blocks of flash memory in the flash-memory array;

a second data area formed from second physical blocks of flash memory in the flash-memory array;

wherein each page in the first physical blocks and each page in the second physical blocks stores host data from a host in the data sector for the page, and stores a logical-sector address (LSA) from the host, the LSA from the host being a host address for the host data from the host; and

toggle means, activated when host data needs to be stored into a full physical block that has no empty pages, for toggling a full first physical block to a background area by writing data sectors from the full first physical block to an external mass storage device and erasing the full first physical block, and for selecting an empty second physical block to receive the host data; the toggle means also for toggling a full second physical block to the background area by writing data sectors from the full second physical block to the external mass storage device and erasing the full second physical block, and for selecting an empty first physical block to receive the host data.



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U.S. References: Go to Result Set: All U.S. references   |  No patents reference this one   |   Backward references (13)   |   Citation Link

Buy
PDF
Patent  Pub.Date  Inventor Assignee   Title
Buy PDF- 5pp US4908793  1990-03 Yamagata et al.  Hitachi, Ltd. Storage apparatus including a semiconductor memory and a disk drive
Buy PDF- 12pp US4949240  1990-08 Iijima  Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba Data storage system having circuitry for dividing received data into sequential wards each stored in storage region identified by chain data
Buy PDF- 12pp US5341339  1994-08 Wells  Intel Corporation Method for wear leveling in a flash EEPROM memory
Buy PDF- 13pp US5568439  1996-10 Harari   Flash EEPROM system which maintains individual memory block cycle counts
Buy PDF- 27pp US5819307  1998-10 Iwamoto et al.  Fujitsu Limited Control method in which frequency of data erasures is limited
Buy PDF- 17pp US6000006  1999-12 Bruce et al.  BIT Microsystems, Inc. Unified re-map and cache-index table with dual write-counters for wear-leveling of non-volatile flash RAM mass storage
Buy PDF- 19pp US6914846  2005-07 Harari et al.  SanDisk Corporation Flash EEprom system
Buy PDF- 15pp US20020041517A1  2002-04 Kim et al.   METHOD OF DRIVING REMAPPING IN FLASH MEMORY AND FLASH MEMORY ARCHITECTURE SUITABLE THEREFOR
Buy PDF- 13pp US20020141244A1  2002-10 Bruce et al.   Parallel erase operations in memory systems
Buy PDF- 8pp US20040088481A1  2004-05 Garney   Using non-volatile memories for disk caching
Buy PDF- 10pp US20050138296A1  2005-06 Coulson et al.   Method and system to alter a cache policy
Buy PDF- 7pp US20050144396A1  2005-06 Eschmann et al.   Coalescing disk write back requests
Buy PDF- 26pp US20060069852A1  2006-03 Aasheim et al.   Free sector manager for data stored in flash memory devices
       
Foreign References: None

Continuity Data:
Application Number Filed Notes

US2007000623860 2007-01-17  is a related to the prior publication
     US20070118688A1 issued 2007-05-24  Flash-Memory Card for Caching a Hard Disk Drive with Data-Area Toggling of Pointers Stored in a RAM Lookup Table

>US2007000623860< 2007-01-17  is a continuation in part of
US2004000956826  2004-10-01   (pending) [presumed granted]
     US7299316 issued 2007-11-20   Memory flash card reader employing an indexing scheme

US2000000478720   is a continuation in part of
US2004000956826  2004-10-01
     US7299316 issued 2007-11-20   Memory flash card reader employing an indexing scheme

US2005000956826   is a continuation in part of
US2004000789333  2004-02-26
     US7318117 issued 2008-01-08   Managing flash memory including recycling obsolete sectors

US2004000956826 2004-10-01  is a continuation in part of
US2004000789333  2004-02-26   (abandoned) [presumed granted]
     US7318117 issued 2008-01-08   Managing flash memory including recycling obsolete sectors

>US2007000623860< 2007-01-17  is a continuation in part of
US2000000478720  2000-01-06   (pending) [presumed granted]
     US7257714 issued 2007-08-14   Electronic data storage medium with fingerprint verification capability

11623860   is a continuation in part of
US2000000478720  2000-01-06
     US7257714 issued 2007-08-14   Electronic data storage medium with fingerprint verification capability


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