MEMORY WITH BLOCK-ERASABLE LOCATIONS

摘要

A non-volatile main memory (10) comprises a plurality of physical blocks of memory locations. Pointing information (112a-c, 114a-c) is stored in the main memory (10), the pointing information comprising pointers (112a-c) to used blocks in use for particular functions and pointers (114a-c) to free blocks that are free for future use for the particular functions. The free blocks to replace selected ones of the used blocks. After this happens an updated version of the pointing information may be written to the main memory only after using at least two of the free blocks as replacements. On start up at least one of the pointers (114a-c) to the free blocks is used to access at least one of the free blocks and to determining whether the accessed free block has been used as a replacement for a particular one of the used blocks. If so, the free block is used instead of the particular one of the used blocks.