LSI Assigned Patent

LSI Corp., Milpitas, CA, has been assigned a patent (8,151,137) developed by Brian D. McKean, Longmont, CO, David L. Dreifus, Clinton, NJ, and Robert W. Warren, Loveland, CO, for "systems and methods for governing the life cycle of a solid state drive."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for data storage. As an example, storage devices are disclosed that include a plurality of memory blocks, an unreliable block identification circuit, and a partial failure indication circuit. Each of the plurality of memory blocks includes a plurality of memory cells that decrease in reliability over time as they are accessed. The unreliable block identification circuit is operable to determine that one or more of the plurality of memory blocks is unreliable, and the partial failure indication circuit is operable to disallow write access to the plurality of memory blocks upon determination that an insufficient number of the plurality of memory blocks remain reliable."

The patent application was filed on May 28, 2009 (12/473,437).