Patent ID: 7397713

Claim:
A storage device comprising: a controller to carry out an interface with a host system, via a host bus, to receive instructions from said host system and to control operations to be performed within said storage device; and a nonvolatile semiconductor flash memory coupled with said controller, wherein said nonvolatile semiconductor flash memory is (i) electrically erasable and electrically programmable, (ii) includes a plurality of erase units in connection with an electrical erase operation, and (iii) is electrically programmable to store a sector data from said host system and to store address information for defect mapping, wherein said controller includes an address register file, and is such as to allow a host logical address from said host system to be converted to a physical address of said nonvolatile semiconductor flash memory based on data stored in said address register file, and wherein said data of said address register file is originated from said address information stored in said nonvolatile semiconductor flash memory by said controller at start of a system operation, and then said controller accesses said nonvolatile semiconductor flash memory based upon said data of said address register file.