EMULATED ELECTRICALLY ERASABLE (EEE) MEMORY AND METHOD OF OPERATION

摘要

A system (FIG. 1) has an emulation memory (24) having a plurality of sectors (30-58) for storing information. A controller (22) calculates (64) a number of addresses used divided by a number of valid records in a predetermined address range of the emulation memory. An amount of remaining addresses in a currently used space of the emulation memory which have not been used to store information is calculated. A determination (66) is made whether the calculation is greater than a first predetermined number and whether the amount of remaining addresses is greater than a second predetermined number. If both the fraction is greater than the first predetermined number and the amount of remaining addresses is greater than the second predetermined number, any subsequent update requests are responded to using the currently used space of the emulation memory. Otherwise a compression (72) of the emulation memory is required by copying valid data to an available sector.