Apple Assigned Patent

Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA,, has been assigned a patent (8,918,655) developed by Herman Kenneth L., San Jose, CA, Byom Matthew J., Campbell, CA, Smith Michael J., San Francisco, CA, and Toelkes Tahoma M., San Jose, CA, for a “data whitening for writing and reading data to and from a non-volatile memory.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided for whitening and managing data for storage in non-volatile memories, such as Flash memory. In some embodiments, an electronic device such as media player is provided, which may include a system-on-a-chip, SoC, and a non-volatile memory. The SoC may include SoC control circuitry and a memory interface that acts as an interface between the SoC control circuitry and the non-volatile memory. The SoC can also include an encryption module, such as a block cipher based on the Advanced Encryption Standard, AES,. The memory interface can direct the encryption module to whiten all types of data prior to storage in the non-volatile memory, including sensitive data, non-sensitive data, and memory management data. This can, for example, prevent or reduce program-disturb problems or other read/write/erase reliability issues.“

The patent application was filed on November 18, 2013 (14/082,940).