Patent ID: 6151247
Filing Date: 2000-11-21
Classification: G06F,G11C

Abstract:
A solid state storage system having a host and a nonvolatile memory unit, the host for reading and writing digital information, organized into sectors, from and to the nonvolatile memory unit, the nonvolatile memory unit including one or more nonvolatile memory devices, each nonvolatile memory device including at least one block having a plurality of sector storage spaces for storing the sector information, each sector storage space including storage space for storing data and overhead information, comprising:control circuitry coupled to the nonvolatile memory unit for re-writing a particular group of sector information identified by the host, the particular group of sector information included within a previously-written block of the nonvolatile memory unit, the control circuitry for identifying a particular block and configuring the particular block to include at least two sector storage spaces, a first sector storage space and a second sector storage space, the first sector storage space including a data storage field and an overhead storage field, the second sector storage space including a data storage field and an overhead storage field wherein the second overhead storage field includes a flag field indicative of the status of the particular block, the control circuitry for performing a write operation on the first sector storage space to write data in the data storage field, the control circuitry for performing further write operations to write the particular group of sector information and for performing yet further write operations to move sector information from the previously-written block into like-sector storage spaces within the particular and upon writing sector information to the second storage space, the control circuitry for modifying the contents of the flag field to indicate completion of writing to the particular block, wherein the number of write operations during re-writing of a block is no more than the number of sector storage spaces within a block thereby increasing the overall performance of the system.