Patent ID: 7143327

Claim:
A method for compressing repetitive data, in particular data used in memory device testing, comprising the steps of: recognizing a sequence of repetitive data and encoding said sequence of repetitive data, wherein the encoding of said sequence of repetitive data is obtained using in combination one or more words with a format for non-compressible data and one or more words with a format for compressible data, a word with a format for non-compressible data being made up of a set of bits, in which a specific bit is set at a first logic value and the remaining bits are formed by at least some of the bits of the non-compressible datum to be encoded, and a word with a format for compressible data being made up of a set of bits, in which, a specific bit is set at a second logic value different from said first logic value, a first set of bits indicates the total number of subsequent words, which, together with said word, encode said sequence of repetitive data, and a second set of bits indicates the number of times that the words indicated by said first set of bits are repeated.