Patent ID: 8064257

Claim:
A nonvolatile memory apparatus comprising: a control unit; a main storage medium of the apparatus including a plurality of electrically reloadable nonvolatile memory devices each having a plurality of memory cells, wherein the electrically reloadable nonvolatile memory devices are adapted to be operable even when faulty memory cells exist therein; and a reloadable fault registration memory for registering address values of faulty regions of the main storage medium containing therein the faulty memory cells, wherein data which is stored in the electrically reloadable nonvolatile memory devices are divided into blocks, each block having a plurality of data to be administrated and which is assigned an access address by the control unit, an administrative information region being provided in each block, and wherein the control unit is adapted to carry out (i) access requests of the main storage medium and (ii) the administration of faulty regions and a number of reloading occurrences of reloading of respective ones of the memory cells of the electrically reloadable nonvolatile memory devices in the main storage medium.