| 摘要 |
A semiconductor mass storage system and architecture can be substituted for a rotating hard disk. The system and architecture avoid an erase cycle each time information stored in the mass storage is changed. (The erase cycle is understood to include, fully programming the block to be erased, and then erasing the block.) Erase cycles are avoided by programming an altered data file into an empty mass storage block rather than over itself as hard disk would. Periodically, the mass storage will need to be cleaned up. Secondly, means are provided for evenly using all blocks in the mass storage. These advantages are achieved through the use of several flags, a map (108) to correlate a logical address (308) of a block to a physical address (408) of that block and a count register for each block. In particular, flags (118, 112, 116) are provided for defective blocks, used blocks, old version of a block, and a count to determine the number of times a block has been erased and written and erase inhibit flag. |
