Patent ID: 8019928

Claim:
A method of managing a flash memory that includes at least one block, each block including a plurality of elements, each element having a respective threshold voltage, the method comprising: for a first block of the at least one block: selecting a first value of a parameter N of an N-bit programming mode associated with the first block; designating a single cell of the first block to be a flag cell; and setting the flag cell to represent the first value of the parameter N and programming at least one element of the first block other than the flag cell according to the N-bit programming mode, wherein when the first value of the parameter N is greater than one, the flag cell is programmed according to the N-bit programming mode from an erased state such that only one bit of multiple bits stored at the flag cell is changed from an unprogrammed value to a programmed value to indicate multi-level operation of the first block.