Patent ID: 7340666

Claim:
A method for using data compression to improve error detecting and error correcting capabilities of a memory, wherein the memory supports error detection and error correction, and wherein the memory stores data in storage-words whose size is equal to a storage-word size, the method comprising: receiving a data-word stored in a storage word; compressing the data-word to obtain a compressed-word, whereby the data-word is compressed by an amount of compression; responsive to determining that the amount of compression is greater than or equal to a compression-threshold, applying a strong error-correcting-code to the compressed-word to generate a coded-word in place of the data-word in the storage word, wherein the coded-word's size is less than or equal to the storage-word size; generating a flag that is associated with the strong error-correcting code; and storing the flag along with the coded-word in the memory; thereby improving the overall reliability of the memory without requiring the memory to use storage-words whose size is greater than the storage-word size.