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US 7,890,695 B2Granted
Storage device, computer system, and data writing method
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorsToshiyuki Nishihara, Daisuke Yoshioka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A storage device that includes a flash memory device providing a storage medium, a cache memory for use with the flash memory device, and a control circuit. In the storage device, based on a write command and provided address information, the control circuit selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory as a writing destination of input data.
Claims23
A storage device, comprising:
- a flash memory device providing a storage medium;
- a cache memory for use with the flash memory device;
- and
- a control circuit, wherein
- based on a write command and provided address information, the control circuit selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory as a writing destination of input data, wherein
- a unit cell is set based on a write unit or an erase unit of the flash memory device, and the unit cell includes a plurality of sectors, and
- when a write command comes for writing of block data to any of the plurality of sectors, the control circuit segments the block data into sub blocks in accordance with the unit cell, and selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory as the writing destination of each of the sub blocks in accordance with a check corresponding to the unit cell for each of the sub blocks, the check comprising at least one of checking a level of data occupation in the unit cell, checking an entry of the cache memory corresponding to the unit cell or data therein, or checking a free space on the flash memory device for the unit cell.
4 more elements
A computer system, comprising:
- a processing unit that runs application software;
- a flash memory device providing a file storage medium;
- and
- a cache memory area for use with the flash memory device, wherein
- under control of driver software, the processing unit receives a command from the application software for writing to the file storage medium, and based on address information, selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory area as a writing destination of input data, and wherein
- a unit cell is set based on a write unit or an erase unit of the flash memory device, and the unit cell includes a plurality of sectors, and
- when a write command comes for writing of block data to any of the plurality of sectors, the processing unit segments the block data into sub blocks in accordance with the unit cell, and selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory area as the writing destination of each of the sub blocks in accordance with a check corresponding to the unit cell for each of the sub blocks, the check comprising at least one of checking a level of data occupation in the unit cell, checking an entry of the cache memory corresponding to the unit cell or data therein, or checking a free space on the flash memory device for the unit cell.
4 more elements
A data writing method for a storage device including a flash memory device, and a cache memory area for use with the flash memory device, comprising:
- setting a unit cell including a plurality of sectors based on a write unit or an erase unit of the flash memory device;
- segmenting block data into sub blocks in accordance with the unit cell when a write command comes for writing of the block data to any of the plurality of sectors;
- and
- selecting either the flash memory device or the cache memory area as the writing destination of each of the sub blocks in accordance with a check corresponding to the unit cell for each of the sub blocks, the check comprising at least one of checking a level of data occupation in the unit cell, checking an entry of the cache memory corresponding to the unit cell or data therein, or checking a free space on the flash memory device for the unit cell.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.