Micron Assigned Four Patents

SATA mass storage device emulation on a PCIe interface
Micron Technology, Inc., Boise, ID, has been assigned a patent (8,478,916) developed by Mehdi Asnaashari, Danville, CA, for a "SATA mass storage device emulation on a PCIe interface."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A mass storage device, system, and method for operating a mass storage device are disclosed. In one such mass storage device, a host bus adaptor emulates a SATA mass storage device over a PCIe interface with a host system. The host system generates commands with the PCIe mass storage device in the same format as if communicating with a SATA mass storage device. The PCIe mass storage device responds in the same SATA format."

The patent application was filed on June 27, 2012 (13/534,131).

Semiconductor memory device
Micron Technology, Inc., Boise, ID, has been assigned a patent (8,446,762) developed by Sanh D. Tang, Gordon A. Haller, Boise, ID, and Daniel H. Doyle, Eagle, ID, for "methods of making a semiconductor memory device."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "One-transistor (1T) capacitor-less DRAM cells each include a MOS transistor having a bias gate layer that separates a floating body region from a base substrate. The MOS transistor functions as a storage device, eliminating the need of the storage capacitor. Logic "1" is written to and stored in the storage device by causing majority carriers (holes in an NMOS transistor) to accumulate and be held in the floating body region next to the bias gate layer, and is erased by removing the majority carriers from where they are held."

The patent application was filed on March 25, 2011 (13/071,979).

SSD controller with expansion mode
Micron Technology, Inc., Boise, ID, has been assigned a patent (8,452,916) developed by Dean Klein, Eagle, ID, for a "solid state storage device controller with expansion mode."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Solid state storage device controllers, solid state storage devices, and methods for operation of solid state storage device controllers are disclosed. In one such solid state storage device, the controller can operate in either an expansion DRAM mode or a non-volatile memory mode. In the DRAM expansion mode, one or more of the memory communication channels normally used to communicate with non-volatile memory devices is used to communicate with an expansion DRAM device."

The patent application was filed on May 29, 2012 (13/482,517).

Dynamically configurable MLC state assignment
Micron Technology, Inc., Boise, ID, has been assigned a patent (8,467,242) developed by Brandon Lee Fernandes, Santa Clara, CA, for a "dynamically configurable MLC state assignment."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Memory devices and methods are disclosed, such as those facilitating a data conditioning scheme for multilevel memory cells. For example, one such memory device is capable of inverting the lower page bit values of a complete page of MLC memory cells when a count of the lower page data values is equal to or greater than a particular value or a comparison of current levels compared with a reference current level is equal to or exceeds some threshold condition. Memory devices and methods are also disclosed providing a means for determining initial programming pulse conditions for a population of memory cells based on the number of lower page data values being programmed to a logical 0 or a logical 1 data state."

The patent application was filed on Dec. 15, 2010 (12/968,529).