Conversant IP Assigned Patent

Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc., Ottawa, Canada, has been assigned a patent (9,213,630) developed by Lakhani, Vinod, Palo Alto, CA, and Louie, Benjamin, Fremont, CA, for a “non-volatile memory devices and control and operation thereof.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”An improved non-volatile erase block memory device apparatus and method is described that incorporates an improved addressing scheme to provide for extended addressing allowing redundant erase blocks that are not utilized to repair general use erase blocks of the main memory array to be accessed and utilized as additional storage space by an end user. The additional storage space formed by the unused redundant erase blocks and the specified storage space of the main memory array is presented to the end user as a single contiguous address space. Additionally, the redundant erase blocks can be utilized to repair any damaged erase block in the memory array of the non-volatile erase block memory or Flash memory device regardless of bank placement.“

The patent application was filed on February 17, 2012 (13/399,587).