JPH10124404A - Recording and playback device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Problem] To provide a recording / reproducing apparatus which does not reproduce or use the non-recording area even when power supply is stopped during memory erasing. SOLUTION: After rewriting a location where a recording number is marked as “recorded” on a memory management table 8b, which is a management table storage area on a memory 8, to data representing “non-recording”, recording is performed. An erase command is sent from the memory control means 8 to the memory 8 to erase data in a range (memory 8a) other than the management table recording area, and after this memory erase operation, a bad block (chapter)
That is, a status read signal is output to the memory 8, and a status signal of the memory, which is a response to the status read signal, is read to detect whether or not the erased portion is a defective block. If "1" is normal, "0" is recorded and re-recorded (overwritten) on the memory 8b, which is the management table storage area of the memory 8.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a recording / reproducing apparatus using a nonvolatile memory such as a flash memory as a recording medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Hitherto, in a voice recording apparatus using a flash memory as a recording medium, erasing recorded contents has been performed in the following procedure. That is, (1) data on the memory is erased. (2) The status signal output from the memory is read, and if erasure NG has occurred, a bad block is marked in an area on the memory management table corresponding to the erased location. next,
(3) The marking in the area on the memory management table corresponding to the position where the erasing is performed is rewritten to the non-recording (unusable) marking. Finally, (4) the memory management table is stored in the memory.

[0003] By the way, when erasing recorded contents in the above-described procedure, the voice recording device determines whether or not the erasing operation has been normally performed by reading a status signal after the erasing, Furthermore, in the case of erasure NG, the system is configured to mark the corresponding location in the management table, thereby preventing access to the location (defective block) on the memory thereafter, and this constitutes the voice recording device. This is realized by the characteristics of the flash memory.

That is, a NAND type flash memory has a status read function as one of its functions. This function automatically executes the program and erase operations and repeats the verification operation inside the device,
The result of the execution operation, the state of the device, and the like are output as a status signal to the data bus by an external command. As a result, when a status read signal is sent to the device after the execution of the erasing operation, for example, “0” is output in the case of normal operation and “1” is output in the case of failure (abnormal operation). In other words, it is possible to determine whether the block to be erased is defective. That is, the above-mentioned procedure, that is, the erasing operation is performed, the defective block is detected, the management table is updated, and the detection is performed. This prevents access to the bad block.

If the flash memory constituting the audio recording device is, for example, a 16-megabit flash memory, it takes about 3 seconds to erase the entire area of the memory. Therefore, when power supply to the device (flash memory) is stopped during execution of the above-described erasing procedure, that is, when power is turned off during memory erasing, data in the flash memory is partially erased. However, a situation occurs in which the data (record) on the management table is not updated even though the management table has been updated. Therefore, depending on the contents of the subsequent operations, the non-recorded area on the memory, that is, the area in which the erasing operation (processing) has been completed immediately before the power supply is stopped is reproduced (utilized). There is a problem that it is lost.

[0006]

As described above, according to the conventional (memory) erase operation procedure, the supply of power is stopped for some reason during the execution of the erase operation, that is, before the erase operation is completed. In this case, the data (recording) on the management table is not updated even though the data on the flash memory has been erased halfway, and after the power supply is restarted, no data is recorded on the memory. There is a problem (defect) that an area, that is, an area in which the erasing operation (processing) has been completed (immediately before the power supply is stopped) may be reproduced (utilized).

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of such a problem,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording / reproducing apparatus that does not reproduce or use the non-recording area even when the supply of power is stopped during memory erasure.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording / reproducing apparatus capable of writing input data.
A recording medium capable of reading and erasing written data; operating means for outputting instructions for recording, reproducing, and erasing data on the recording medium; and an instruction from the operating means. Upon receiving the data, a memory control means for performing control for recording, reproducing, and erasing data on the recording medium and a management table for performing various managements of each recording area of the recording medium are stored. Storing means for erasing data recorded in a predetermined recording area of the recording medium in cooperation with the memory control means, the data corresponding to a predetermined recording area on the recording medium to be erased; Clearing the management area on the management table, then erasing the data on the recording area on the recording medium, and then determining that the erased area on the recording medium is defective. It is determined whether or not Luke, characterized by comprising a management table control means for updating the said management region in the management table based on the last on the determination result.

A recording and reproducing apparatus according to a second aspect of the present invention is the recording and reproducing apparatus according to the first aspect, wherein the management table is provided in a part of the recording medium. According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording / reproducing apparatus according to the first or second aspect, wherein the recording medium comprises a flash memory. The recording / reproducing apparatus according to the fourth aspect of the present invention is the recording / reproducing apparatus according to the first, second or third aspect, wherein the control means is constituted by a microcomputer, and the management table is
It is provided in a RAM in the microcomputer.

According to the first to fourth aspects of the present invention, when an erasing operation is performed, first, a portion (chapter or block) on the management table where a marking indicating recording has been made is set to a non-recording state. Since the marking is rewritten, the power supply to the memory is stopped during the subsequent memory erasing operation, and even if the erasing operation is interrupted halfway, the recording (marking) on the management table becomes unrecorded. Therefore, it is possible to prevent a non-recording area, that is, an incomplete area (block) in which erasing has not been completed due to power-off, from being reproduced by a subsequent operation (resumption of power supply).

Further, since the status signal is read after the erasing operation to detect a defective block and the management table is updated again, access to the defective block can be prevented at the same time.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the recording and reproducing apparatus according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, the data handled by the recording medium is audio or video data. According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the recording / reproducing apparatus according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, wherein the data handled by the recording medium is audio and video data. It is a feature.

According to the invention described in claim 5 or 6,
As a recording / reproducing device, the present invention can be applied to a solid-state recording / reproducing device capable of recording and reproducing also an audio signal and a video signal.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention, and shows a configuration of a recording / reproducing apparatus using a flash memory as a recording medium as an example.

This recording / reproducing apparatus includes an operation unit 1, a mode transition control unit 2, a display unit 3, a display control unit 4, an audio input unit 5, and a DSP (Digital Sound Processor) 6.
, DSP control means 7, memory 8, memory control means 9, audio output unit 10, management table control means 18
, Battery detection control means 20, A / D conversion circuit 21
And a battery 22.

The operation unit 1 includes a play button 11 and a record button 12
A stop button 13, a fast-forward button (referred to as an FF button) 14,
It has buttons such as a rewind button (referred to as a REW button) 16.

The display section 3 is composed of, for example, a liquid crystal display device.

At the start of recording, the mode transition control means 2 detects that the recording button 12 provided on the operation unit 1 has been pressed. By the transition to the recording mode, a recording start instruction is issued to the DSP control means 7. DSP control means 7
Receives this signal and controls the DSP 6 to perform a compression operation.

The voice input unit 5 includes a microphone 51, a filter 52, an A / D conversion circuit 53, and the like.
For example, an audio signal input from the microphone 51 and digitally converted by the A / D conversion circuit 53 is converted to a DSP.
6. The DSP 6 and the memory control unit 9 record the audio signal from the audio input unit 5 in the audio data storage unit 8a of the memory 8 in a predetermined unit (block length).

The memory 8 is composed of, for example, a flash memory, and has an audio data storage section 8a and a management table section 8b for storing various information such as a recording state (address and the like) of the audio data storage section 8a and fault information. And is divided into The memory control means 9 has a function of controlling recording and reproduction of the memory 8, and thereby controls writing and reading of audio data to and from the audio data storage unit 8 a of the memory 8. That is, at the time of recording in the memory 8, for example, a status read signal is output after the execution of the erasing operation, the status signal of the memory which is a response is read, and a defective block is detected. To write a defective block based on the status signal to the management table unit 8b. At the time of reproduction, control is performed such that reading is performed from blocks other than the defective block (normal blocks) based on the information recorded in the management table section 8b.

The management table control means 18 writes the start address and the end address of the area recorded in the audio data storage section 8a in one recording operation into the management table section 8b, and refers to these at the time of reproduction, and The data can be read out as data for the case.

FIG. 2 shows a pattern in the memory 8. FIG.
2A shows only the management table unit 8b, and FIG. 2B shows the memory 8.

The management table section 8b manages the allocation of a memory area when the area of the audio data storage section 8a of the memory 8 is separated. In a solid-state memory or the like, a start address and an end address are stored in a table. Is recorded and managed.

A unit (the block) for treating information recorded in one recording operation as one piece of information is called a piglet (the number of recordings), and is literally important as a recording unit such as a solid-state memory. It means one break.
Information such as a start address and an end address for each chapter shown in FIG. 2 is written at a predetermined location at the start of recording, during recording, or at the end of recording. The management of recorded contents using this table is described in Japanese Patent Application No. 7-339244.

Here, the creation of the management table will be described. When writing audio data from the audio input unit 5 to the memory 8 via the DSP 6, the management table control unit 18 determines the number of chapters recorded in the past from the information in the memory 8b and the end address thereof. Searching.
In FIG. 2, up to chapter 3 has been recorded, and the end address thereof is incremented by one.
Record as At this time, the start address is written into the management table 8b, and at the time of recording, each time the write address is increased, this address is continued as the end address. This operation is continued until the stop button 13 is pressed. Therefore, the write address at the end of recording by the stop button 13 is written in the management table 8b as the end address. By repeating this, the start address and the end address of each chapter are written into the management table 8b as shown in FIG.

Further, in this embodiment, in addition to recording the start address and end address for each piglet in the management table 8b, a start block number (4 bits represented by 0 to Fh) in the pre-recorded area is recorded. And the defective chapter (block) information.

Up to this point, the part relating to the recording operation has been described. Next, the part relating to the reproducing operation will be described.

The mode transition control means 2 detects that the reproduction button 11 has been pressed, and the DSP shifts to the reproduction mode.
Notify control means 7. The DSP control means 7 outputs a reproduction instruction to the DSP 6, reads the recorded signal from the audio data storage section 8a of the memory 8, and reproduces the signal. At this time the DSP
No. 6 reproduces after expanding and restoring the compressed signal. Reading from the audio data storage section 8a of the memory 8 is performed only from normal chapters (blocks) based on defective chapter (block) information in the management table 8b. The recording data such as the audio data in the audio data storage section 8a of the memory 8 is recorded only in the normal chapter (block) at the time of the recording operation described above.

Then, the reproduced audio signal is guided to the audio output unit 10 and the D / A conversion circuit 10 of the audio output unit 10
The signal is converted into an analog signal by 1 and output from the speaker 103 through the filter 102.

The display control unit 4 and the display unit 3 are provided for displaying the recorded portion, and the user searches for the portion to be reproduced while watching the display. By fast forward (FF) or rewind (REW), a part to be reproduced can be searched and reproduced. The specific configuration of this portion is described in detail in the specification of Japanese Patent Application No. 7-104093 filed by the present applicant.

Next, the details of the erasing operation in the recording / reproducing apparatus of FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of the erasing operation in the recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 3, prior to an erasing operation of the memory (flash memory) 8, first, a memory management table 8b, which is a management table storage area on the memory 8, is updated (step S1). Here, the management table 8b
Data indicating the “recorded” number as the “recorded” above and indicating “no record” (for example, F
F), and is recorded on the memory 8b.

Next, an erasing operation of the memory 8 is performed (step S2). Here, an erase command is sent to the memory (flash memory) 8 to erase data in a range (the memory 8a) other than the management table recording area.

Next, a defective block is detected (step S3). Here, after the memory erasing operation, a status read signal is output to the memory 8, the response of the status signal of the memory is read, and it is detected whether or not the erased portion is a defective block. For example, "1" is recorded in the case of a defect, and "0" is recorded in the case of a normal case, and is re-recorded (overwritten) on the memory 8b which is a management table storage area of the memory 8.

By the above-described control, for example, when the power supply is stopped by removing the battery during the process of step S2 and the process is interrupted, the remaining data remains erased in the memory. Will be. However, when the supply of power is resumed thereafter, the management table is updated according to the processing contents of step S1, that is, the processing of step S1 has already been completed (the erasing operation takes the longest time). Is the time when the audio data recorded on the memory 8a, which is the audio data storage area of the memory 8, is physically erased). In this case, since the recording is performed according to the above management table (with consideration), the unerased portion (block) can be used.

However, since the step S3 is not performed, the data (audio data, video data, etc.) is recorded on the memory (flash memory) after the erasing operation is interrupted due to a power failure or the like. Is preferably performed after performing step S3.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a recording / reproducing apparatus using a flash memory which is a solid-state memory as a storage medium has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. It is also possible to apply to a recording / reproducing device or the like.

In the above-mentioned recording / reproducing apparatus, the description has been made assuming that the audio data is recorded / reproduced. However, in the present invention, when the audio data is converted into digital data such as video data and restored to analog data, The present invention can be applied to recording / reproducing of all kinds of information data without causing any trouble.

[0039]

As described above, according to the present invention, even if the power supply is stopped for some reason during the memory erasing operation, the data in the non-recording area in the memory is reproduced or used. It is possible to provide a recording / reproducing apparatus that does not need to be performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a memory 8;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of an erasing operation of the recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Operation part 2 ... Mode transition control means 3 ... Display part 4 ... Display control part 5 ... Speech input part 6 ... DSP 7 ... DSP control means 8 ... Memory (flash memory) 8a ... Memory (for sound data storage) 8b ... Memory (for management table storage) 9 ... Memory control means 10 ... Audio output unit 18 ... Management table control means 20 ... Battery detection control means 21 ... A / D conversion circuit 22 ... Battery

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A recording medium on which input data can be written and from which the written data can be read and erased, and an instruction for recording, reproducing, and erasing data on the recording medium. Operating means for outputting, a memory control means for performing control for recording, reproducing, and erasing data on the recording medium in response to an instruction from the operating means, and each recording area of the recording medium A storage unit for storing a management table for performing various types of management, and a procedure for erasing data recorded in a predetermined recording area of the recording medium in cooperation with the memory control unit. Clearing the management area on the management table corresponding to a predetermined recording area on the recording medium, then erasing data on the recording area on the recording medium, And a management table control means for determining whether or not the erased portion on the recording medium is defective, and finally updating the management area in the management table based on the determination result. Recording and reproducing device. 2. The recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the management table is provided in a part of the recording medium. 3. The recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said recording medium comprises a flash memory. 4. The control means is constituted by a microcomputer, and the management table is stored in an R in the microcomputer.
4. The recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording / reproducing apparatus is provided in an AM. 5. A recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data handled by said recording medium is audio or video data. 6. The recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data handled by said recording medium is audio and video data.