CN100440172C - Flash memory and using method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a flash memory and a using method thereof. The use method of the flash memory comprises the following steps: a) providing a single-chip flash memory; b) formatting the flash memory and marking the bad magnetic of the flash memory as a bad sector which can not reliably store data; c) calculating the capacity of available memory in the flash memory, wherein the available memory does not contain the bad sector of the flash memory; and d) partitioning the available memory into a first storage memory and a second storage memory, wherein the first storage memory and the second storage memory have different capacities.

Description

Flash memory and how to use it

technical field

The present invention relates to a single chip flash memory and its usage method.

Background technique

Flash memory is a type of EEPROM that allows multiple memory locations to be erased or written to in one program operation. In plain language, it is a form of rewritable memory chip, and unlike random access memory (Random Access Memory; RAM) chips, flash memory does not require a constant supply of power to maintain stored data.

Generally, traditional EEPROM only allows one location to be deleted or written at a time, which means that when the system uses flash memory to read and write different locations at the same time, it can operate at a higher performance speed. All types of flash memory and EEPROM wear out after a certain number of erase operations due to the depletion of the insulating oxide layer around the charge storage mechanism used to store data.

Flash memory is non-volatile memory, meaning it does not require power to maintain information stored on silicon chips. In addition, flash memory provides fast access times and solid-state physical shock resistance. These characteristics explain why flash memory is so popular for storage applications in battery-powered devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Typical flash memory (individual internal components or "chips") can range in size from a few kilobytes to hundreds of megabytes. Toshiba and SanDisk have even developed a NAND flash memory chip that uses Multi-Level Cell (MLC) technology to store 8Gb (1GB) of data, and each cell can store 2 bits of data. In September 2005, Samsung Electronics, currently the world's largest NAND flash memory manufacturer with a market share of about 40%, announced that it had developed the world's first 16GB NAND flash memory chip. Because of the Samsung 16Gb chip, there was the iPodnano. The iPod nano is a 2GB and 4GB flash memory device that uses two 1GB Toshiba chips and two 2GB Samsung chips, respectively, as verified by Ars Technica and Inpress Direct. Until now the spot price of NAND is still quite good. With the continuous increase in memory capacity, flash memory with a capacity of 32MB and smaller is no longer used, and flash memory with a capacity of 64MB is gradually being eliminated.

Nowadays, memory is commonly used in memory cards, USB flash drives, MP3 players, digital cameras, and mobile phones. Generally speaking, the capacity of a single memory chip is 64M, 128M, 256M, 512M, 1G, 2G. However, when making memory chips, there may be some bad disks (typically the size of a sector) that cannot reliably store data due to physical defects that destroy format marks. When manufacturing a memory chip with a capacity of 1G, it may even contain a bad disk with a capacity of 200M. Therefore, this memory chip cannot be used as a flash memory with a capacity of 1G.

Therefore, it is necessary to provide a single-chip flash memory that can divide the flash memory into at least two different-capacity logical memories and its use method, so as to help optimize the use of memory space, which will improve the shortcomings of the prior art and solve the above problems.

Contents of the invention

The present invention discloses a single-chip flash memory and its usage method. This paragraph summarizes some features of the present invention, and other features will be described in subsequent paragraphs. The present invention is defined by the appended claims, which are incorporated into this paragraph by reference.

Therefore, the prior art is limited by the above-mentioned problems. The main purpose of the present invention is to provide a single-chip flash memory, wherein the flash memory is divided into at least two logical memories with different capacities, so that the memory space can be used optimally.

According to the main aspect of the present invention, a single-chip flash memory with a preset capacity includes a bad sector with a damaged format mark and cannot reliably store data, and the bad sector has a specific capacity; for providing a first storage memory to store a first logical area for data; and a second logical area for providing a second storage memory for storing data, wherein the first storage memory and the second storage memory have different capacities and neither contains the bad sector.

According to the above concept, the specific capacity exceeds 10% of the preset capacity.

According to the above idea, the capacity of the first storage memory is 2 ^p bytes, and the capacity of the second storage memory is 2 ^q bytes, and p and q are each a natural number.

According to the above concept, wherein p is greater than q.

According to the above idea, the first storage memory and the second storage memory can load data to each other through internal application programs.

According to the above idea, the first storage memory and the second storage memory are write-protected.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a single-chip flash memory with a predetermined capacity includes a bad sector with a damaged format mark and cannot reliably store data, and the bad sector has a specific capacity; for providing a first storage memory to A first logical area for storing data; a second logical area for providing a second storage memory to store data; and a third logical area for providing a third storage memory to store data, wherein the first storage memory, the second storage memory The second storage memory and the third storage memory have different capacities and do not contain the bad sector.

According to the above concept, the specific capacity exceeds 10% of the preset capacity.

According to the above idea, the capacities of the first storage memory, the second storage memory, and the third storage memory are 2 ^p , 2 ^q , and 2 ^r bytes respectively, and each of p, q, and r is a natural number.

According to the above concept, wherein p is greater than q and q is greater than r.

According to the above idea, the first storage memory, the second storage memory, and the third storage memory can load data to each other via internal application programs.

According to the above idea, wherein the first storage memory, the second storage memory, and the third storage memory are write-protected.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for using a flash memory, comprising the steps of: a) providing a single-chip flash memory; b) formatting the flash memory and marking the bad sector of the flash memory as a bad sector that cannot reliably store data area; c) calculating the capacity of the available memory in the flash memory, wherein the available memory does not include the bad sector of the flash memory; and d) dividing the available memory into a first storage memory and a second storage memory, wherein the first storage memory A storage memory and the second storage memory have different capacities.

According to the above idea, the capacity of the first storage memory is 2 ^p bytes, and the capacity of the second storage memory is 2 ^q bytes, and p and q are each a natural number.

According to the above concept, wherein p is greater than q.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for using a flash memory, comprising the steps of: a) providing a single-chip flash memory; b) formatting the flash memory and marking the bad sector of the flash memory as a bad sector that cannot reliably store data area; c) calculating the capacity of the available memory in the flash memory, wherein the available memory does not include the bad sector of the flash memory; and d) dividing the available memory into a first storage memory, a second storage memory, and a third storage Memory, wherein the first storage memory, the second storage memory, and the third storage memory have different capacities.

According to the above idea, the capacities of the first storage memory, the second storage memory, and the third storage memory are 2 ^p , 2 ^q , and 2 ^r bytes respectively, and each of p, q, and r is a natural number.

According to the above concept, wherein p is greater than q and q is greater than r.

Description of drawings

The present invention is not limited to the above examples. Other features of the present invention are described below. The invention is defined by the appended claims.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a flash memory according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a flash memory method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a block diagram of a flash memory according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a flash memory method according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols in drawings

11 flash memory

12 bad sectors

13 The first logical area

131 The first storage memory

132 applications

14 Second logical area

141 Second storage memory

142 applications

15 first control notch

16 Second control notch

17 The third logical area

171 The third storage memory

Detailed ways

The invention discloses a single-chip flash memory and its usage method. The embodiments described in this paragraph are for explaining the present invention, not limiting the present invention. The invention is not limited to a particular species, process step or procedure. The invention is defined by the appended claims.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a flash memory according to an embodiment of the present invention. The single-chip flash memory includes a bad sector 12 with a damaged format mark and cannot reliably store data; a first logical area 13 for providing a first storage memory 131 to store data; and a second storage memory 141 for storing data The second logical area 14, wherein the first storage memory 131 and the second storage memory 141 have different capacities.

In fact, the capacity of flash memory is 64M, 128M, 256M, 512M, 1G, 2G. In this embodiment, the capacity of the flash memory 11 is 1G, but the capacity of the flash memory 11 also includes a bad sector 12 with a capacity of 256M. In addition, the capacities of the first storage memory 131 and the second storage memory 141 are 64M, 128M, 256M, 512M, and 1G. In other words, the first storage memory 131 and the second storage memory 141 have different capacities, and the capacity of the second storage memory 141 is smaller than that of the first storage memory 131 . Therefore, the capacity of the first storage memory 131 can be 512M, and the capacity of the second storage memory 141 can be 256M, wherein even if the flash memory 11 includes bad sectors 12 of about 256M, the remaining space of the flash memory 11 can still be divided into Two logical memories of different sizes are used to optimize the use of memory space. Undoubtedly, both the first storage memory 131 and the second storage memory 141 can load data from the other of the two storage memories through the application program 132 or 142 therein. In addition, the data in the first storage memory 131 is encrypted and write-protected through the first control notch 15 ; and the data in the second storage memory 141 is encrypted and write-protected through the second control notch 16 . Therefore, the first storage memory 131 and the second storage memory 141 can be implemented separately without mutual limitation.

In fact, the above-mentioned flash memory can be manufactured by the method of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a flash memory method according to an embodiment of the present invention. The method for using the flash memory includes the following steps: a) providing a single chip flash memory; b) formatting the flash memory and marking the bad magnetic field of the flash memory as a bad sector that cannot reliably store data; c) calculating the available memory in the flash memory The capacity of memory, wherein the available memory does not include the bad sector of the flash memory; and d) dividing the available memory into a first storage memory and a second storage memory, wherein the first storage memory and the second storage memory have different capacities. In fact, many defective flash memories can be produced during the normal manufacturing process. Like the embodiment of FIG. 1, when producing a flash memory with a capacity of 1G, there are too many bad disks to provide the capacity as 1G. In the past, 1G flash with too many bad disks would be discarded or formatted into 512M RAM. However, the present invention will enable optimal capacity utilization of such defective flash memory.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a flash memory according to another embodiment of the invention. The single-chip flash memory 11 includes a bad sector 12 with a damaged format mark and a capacity of 128M. Therefore, the flash memory may include a first logical area 13 for providing the first storage memory 131 to store data and a capacity of 512M; a second logical area 14 for providing the second storage memory 141 to store data and a capacity of 256M; and The third logical area 17 is used to provide a third storage memory 171 for storing data and has a capacity of 128M, wherein the first storage memory 13 , the second storage memory 14 , and the third storage memory 17 all have different capacities. Similarly, the first storage memory 131 , the second storage memory 141 , and the third storage memory 171 can all load data from the other of the above three storage memories through an internal application program. In addition, the first storage memory 131 , the second storage memory 141 , and the third storage memory 171 can be implemented separately without being limited to each other. In fact, the method of the present invention can be further disclosed as shown in FIG. 4 according to the above description. FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a flash memory method according to another embodiment of the present invention. In particular, this method allows further processing of defective flash memory. In step a), once a single-chip flash memory is obtained, it will be formatted and bad disks that cannot reliably store data will be marked as bad sectors. Therefore, the available memory capacity will decrease. In step b), the available memory capacity of the bad sectors of the flash memory will be calculated. After obtaining the value of the available memory capacity, the available memory capacity will be divided into multiple binary system blocks. For example, as shown in FIG. 3 , there are about 128M bad sectors in a flash memory with a capacity of 1G. The remaining available memory capacity after deducting bad sectors can be divided into 512M+256M+128M. Therefore, the flash memory 11 will include a first storage memory 13 with a capacity of 512M, a second storage memory 14 with a capacity of 256M, and a third storage memory 17 with a capacity of 128M. Undoubtedly, the present invention can divide the available memory of the flash memory without bad disk into multiple logical memories of the binary system. For a flash memory with a capacity of 1G, if there are about 192M bad disks, the available memory can be divided into three logical memories with a capacity of 512M, 256M, and 64M for use. In other words, a defective flash memory can be partitioned into multiple logical memories of the binary system and used with optimal capacity due to its bad disk.

Finally, the present invention provides a single-chip flash memory and its usage method by dividing the flash memory into at least two logical memories with different capacities to optimize the memory space. Therefore, defective flash memory can be used with optimal capacity. At the same time, it effectively improves the defects of traditional techniques and makes up for its lack of functions. Therefore, the present invention has considerable commercial and industrial value.

Although the technical means cited in the present invention are not difficult, they can indeed achieve the effect and purpose through the structure and method disclosed above. Even though the present invention has been described in detail by the above-mentioned embodiments, various modifications or changes can be made by those skilled in the art, but none of them depart from the protection scope of the appended claims.

Claims (18)

1. one chip flash memory with preset capacity comprises:

Have and damage the form mark and the reliable bad sector of storage data, this bad sector has specified vol;

Be used to provide first to store first logic area of internal memory with storage data; And

Be used to provide second to store second logic area of internal memory with storage data,

Wherein this first storage internal memory and this second storage internal memory have different capabilities and all do not comprise described bad sector.

2. flash memory according to claim 1, wherein, this specified vol surpasses 10% of this preset capacity.

3. flash memory according to claim 1, wherein, this first capacity that stores internal memory is 2 ^pByte, and this second capacity that stores internal memory is 2 ^qByte, and p and q respectively are a natural number.

4. flash memory according to claim 3, wherein, p is greater than q.

5. flash memory according to claim 1, wherein, this first store internal memory and this second store internal memory can be via internal applications loading data each other.

6. flash memory according to claim 1 wherein, saves as the write-protect protection in this first storage internal memory and this second storage.

7. one chip flash memory with preset capacity comprises:

Have and damage the form mark and the reliable bad sector of storage data, this bad sector has specified vol;

Be used to provide first to store first logic area of internal memory with storage data;

Be used to provide second to store second logic area of internal memory with storage data; And

Be used to provide the 3rd to store three logic area of internal memory with storage data,

Wherein this first storage internal memory, this second storage internal memory, the 3rd store internal memory and have different capabilities and all do not comprise described bad sector.

8. flash memory according to claim 7, wherein, this specified vol surpasses 10% of this preset capacity.

9. flash memory according to claim 7, wherein, this first capacity that stores internal memory, this second storage internal memory, the 3rd storage internal memory respectively is 2 ^p, 2 ^q, 2 ^rByte, and p, q, r respectively are a natural number.

10. flash memory according to claim 9, wherein, p greater than q and q greater than r.

11. flash memory according to claim 7, wherein, this first store internal memory, this second store internal memory, the 3rd store internal memory can be via the mutual loading data of internal applications.

12. flash memory according to claim 7, wherein, this first storage internal memory, this second storage internal memory, the 3rd save as the write-protect protection in storing.

13. the using method of a flash memory comprises the following steps:

A) provide the flash memory of one chip;

B) be labeled as the reliably bad sector of storage data with the format of this flash memory and with the bad magnetic of this flash memory;

C) calculate the capacity of the free memory in this flash memory, wherein this free memory does not comprise this bad sector of this flash memory; And

D) this free memory is divided into first and stores the internal memory and the second storage internal memory, wherein this first storage internal memory and this second storage internal memory have different capabilities.

14. method according to claim 13, wherein, this first capacity that stores internal memory is 2 ^pByte, and this second capacity that stores internal memory is 2 ^qByte, and p and q respectively are a natural number.

15. method according to claim 14, wherein, p is greater than q.

16. the using method of a flash memory comprises the following steps:

A) provide the flash memory of one chip;

B) be labeled as the reliably bad sector of storage data with the format of this flash memory and with the bad magnetic of this flash memory;

C) calculate the capacity of the free memory in this flash memory, wherein this free memory does not comprise this bad sector of this flash memory; And

D) this free memory is divided into first and stores internal memory, the second storage internal memory, the 3rd storage internal memory, wherein this first storage internal memory, this second storage internal memory, the 3rd store internal memory and have different capabilities.

17. method according to claim 16, wherein, this first capacity that stores internal memory, this second storage internal memory, the 3rd storage internal memory respectively is 2 ^p, 2 ^q, 2 ^rByte, and p, q, r respectively are a natural number.

18. method according to claim 17, wherein, p greater than q and q greater than r.

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