Patent for bad block management

Datalight has been awarded a patent for its "bad block management" software capability.

Datalight has been awarded a patent for its "bad block management" software capability, which supports the use of popular NAND and AND Flash memory devices for cost-sensitive and write-intensive embedded applications.

This bad block management capability is incorporated into the current release of Datalight's FlashFX Flash management software.

Flash memory provides reliable, low-power, low-cost, nonvolatile storage used for programmable code and data, making it ideal for small, mobile devices such as PDAs and cell phones, and for embedded controllers.

Datalight's patented bad block management (BBM) capability maps bad blocks dynamically and throughout the life of the product, without the use of any special hardware.

These blocks are then excluded from write-erase cycles.

This capability opens up the use of less expensive NAND and AND Flash technologies for cost-sensitive applications, such as data logging devices used for monitoring streaming data, while allowing applications to exploit faster erase-write memory management capability.

"We continue to engineer innovative software that help our customers quickly develop cost-effective mobile and embedded systems", said Roy Sherrill, Datalight CEO.

"This is Datalight's second patent for FlashFX.

The first patent issued in January 1999, was for Datalight's variable block format technology".

Back to top