Back to results
US 2014/0351493 A1Published application
Wear leveling for erasable memories
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorsMassimo Iaculo, Ornella Vitale, Antonino Pollio
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In accordance with some embodiments, wear leveling may be done based on the difference in age of discarded blocks and engaged blocks. Data is moved to an older discarded block from a younger engaged block. Two wear leveling bits may be used for each logical block, such that the wear leveling bits are used in alternating cycles.
Claims24
1-22. (canceled)
A method, comprising:
- performing wear leveling when a difference of ages of a discarded block and a reference block exceeds a threshold;
- and
- selecting a new reference block from engaged blocks having respective wear level bits that did not change in a previous wear leveling.
A method, comprising:
- determining an age difference based on an age of a new engaged block and an age of at least one other block, wherein the new engaged block and the at least one other block are included in a plurality of blocks;
- and
- performing wear leveling when the age difference exceeds a threshold.
An apparatus comprising:
- a first storage configured to store information about ages of a plurality of physical memory blocks;
- a second storage configured to store wear level bits, wherein two wear level bits are associated with each of the plurality of physical memory blocks;
- and
- a wear level engine configured to move data from a first physical memory block of the plurality of physical memory blocks to a second physical memory block of the plurality of physical memory blocks based, at least in part, on a difference in the ages of the first physical memory block and the second physical memory block.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.