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US 6,687,325 B1Granted
Counter with non-uniform digit base
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorSteven E. Wells
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A nonvolatile counter. A nonvolatile storage is organized in digits having non-uniform bases. Circuitry is provided to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command.
Claims24
A counter comprising:
- a nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases and a
- respective number of bits according to its base minus one;
- and
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command.
1 more element
A counter comprising:
- a nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases, and
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command, the circuitry to increment a count value including:
- circuitry to increment one digit of the digits by programming only one bit of the one digit and evaluate bits of the one digit to identify a least significant bit of the one digit that is in an erased state, the least significant bit being the only one bit programmed to increment the one digit.
A counter comprising:
- nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases;
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command;
- and
- configuration circuitry to receive a counter setup command, to allocate regions of the nonvolatile storage to the digits according to the counter setup command and store setup information specified in the setup command in a region of the nonvolatile storage.
1 more element
A counter comprising:
- nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases;
- and
- circuitry to increment a count value by one causing the count value to be reduced by one in response to an increment command.
A counter comprising:
- nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases;
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command;
- and
- circuitry to prevent erasure of the digits in response to detecting that a maximum count of the counter has been reached.
1 more element
A counter comprising:
- nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases;
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command,
- program circuitry to write data to the nonvolatile storage in response to
- program commands received from an external source;
- and
- circuitry to detect whether an address specified by one of the program commands falls within a range of the nonvolatile storage allocated to the digits and to disallow the program circuitry from writing data at the address.
3 more elements
A counter comprising:
- nonvolatile storage organized in digits having non-uniform bases;
- circuitry to increment a count value represented by the digits in response to an increment command;
- and
- program circuitry to write data to the nonvolatile storage in response to program commands received from an external source.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.