Importance

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Abstract

A method and apparatus are provided for operating a flash memory (24) as a client memory, wherein the flash memory comprises a partition (28) of physical data storage locations. The partition is divided into a plurality of units (30). Each unit is organized into a plurality of allocations (60) where each allocation includes a plurality of blocks (58) of physical data storage locations. The partition is organized into a plurality of regions (46) which define a client address space such that each region represents a portion of the client address space. Interfacing the client address space with the physical address space requires maintaining an allocation list (56) for each unit that includes an allocation (68) entry describing each allocation in the unit. Each allocation entry includes a first field (70) storing a client start address for the allocation in the client address space and a second field (72) storing an allocation length indicating the number of blocks of data in that allocation. A third field (74) stores a status of the allocation, i.e., either valid, pending, bad or discarded, and a fourth field (76) stores a physical start address for the allocation in the partition.

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First Claim