US 20040193782A1
(19) United States
(12) Patent Application Publication (io) Pub. No.: US 2004/0193782 Al
Bordui (43) Pub. Date: Sep. 30,2004
(54) NONVOLATILE INTELLIGENT FLASH CACHE MEMORY
(76) Inventor: David Bordui, Lake Mary, FL (US)
Correspondence Address:
Elmer W. Galbi
MARGER JOHNSON & McCOLLOM, P.C.
1030 S.W. Morrison Street
Portland, OR 97205 (US)
(21) Appl. No.: 10/821,238
(22) Filed: Mar. 25, 2004
Related U.S. Application Data
(60) Provisional application No. 60/457,968, filed on Mar. 26, 2003.
Publication Classification (51) Int. CI.7 G06F 12/00
A cache between a USB and a flash memory: The cache utilizes multiple banks ol Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM). The size ol each bank in the MRAM corresponds to the size ol a sector in the flash memory. Initially, the data received Irom the host is stored in one ol the MRAM banks. At any particular time, data destined for only one sector ol the flash memory is written in each particular MRAM bank. When an MRAM bank contains as much data as the capacity ol a sector, the data stored in the bank is written to the corresponding sector in the flash memory. The MRAM has a relatively high write speed and thus data can be written at the speed data is transmitted on the USB bus. Furthermore, the MRAM is a non-volatile storage device, hence, il the device is disconnected from the USB port on the host (or il power is otherwise removed), no data is lost.
