Patent ID: 8010854

Claim:
A method of detecting brownout in a system having a non-volatile memory (NVM), comprising: loading data in the NVM, wherein a next step in loading is performed on a location in the NVM that is logically sequential to an immediately preceding loading; identifying a pair of adjacent locations in the NVM in which one location of the pair of adjacent locations is filled with possible data and another location of the pair of adjacent locations is empty using a first reference for determining contents of the pair; determining the contents of a first location of the pair using a second reference to obtain a first test value for the first location, wherein the second reference sets a higher standard for identifying a logic high; determining the contents of the first location using a third reference to obtain a second test value for the first location, wherein the third reference sets a higher standard for identifying a logic low; determining if the first test value is the same as the second test value; and if the first test value is the same as the second test value, the method further comprises: determining the contents of a second location of the pair using the second reference to obtain a third test value for the second location; determining the contents of the second location using the third reference to obtain a fourth test value for the second location; and determining if the third test value is the same as the fourth test value, wherein a brownout is detected if a determination comprising one of a group consisting of the first test value is different than the second test value and the third test value is different than the fourth test value occurs.