Patent Application
20150253989
Various embodiment of the invention relate generally to memory cards and particularly to memory card readers.
Memory cards offer portability for transferring and/or maintaining large amounts of data, in various forms, and are therefore widely employed. Examples of information stored in memory cards are video, pictures, data files, and a host of other types of information.
As memory has dropped in price and size, applications employing memory, such as memory card readers, have benefited greatly. A memory card today has a memory capacity orders of magnitude more than those of, for example, five years ago and cost less than an equivalent memory card if it would have been possible to make such memory cards. Memory cards are expected to continue to enjoy these benefits in the future.
Security is a near-must for the protection of information to guard against or at least reduce the risk of information theft. Unfortunately, as is well known, identity theft has been a major concern. Portability of sensitive information, in a memory card, presents at times catastrophic risks.
Further, the transfer of information from a memory card to a host machine, for example from a portable memory drive to a personal computer (PC), currently takes time. Needless to say, this is, at a minimum, inconvenient for users of memory cards. Performance of the memory card is hindered by current controllers that are employed to read saved information transferred from a memory card to a host.
Accordingly, there is a need for card readers with higher performance and security.
Briefly, a card reader controller engine includes an interface controller responsive to information. The engine is coupled to the interface controller and is configured to compress the information before the information is to be stored in a memory card. A master interface is coupled to the engine and is further responsive to the compressed information for storage in the memory card.
A further understanding of the nature and the advantages of particular embodiments disclosed herein may be realized by reference of the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.
Particular embodiments and methods of the invention disclose a storage device having a disk controller and a non-volatile memory coupled to the disk controller and operable to save one or more passwords. The storage device further includes a media with more than one partition, the disk controller making each partition to be accessible to one or more users based on the saved one or more passwords.
The following description describes a card reader controller. The card reader employs one or more data compression/decompression engines causing improved performance and greater security, as discussed below.
Referring now to
The microprocessor 10 is shown coupled to the ROM 14, the RAM 15, the interface controller 11, the data compression/decompression engine 12, and the master interface 13. As such, the microprocessor 10 controls the remaining blocks shown in the card read controller engine 1. The interface controller 11 is typically in communication with a host (not shown). Information, such as data, is transferred between the card reader controller engine 1 and the host through the interface controller 11 and under the direction of the microprocessor 10.
The master interface 13 is typically in communication with storage devices (not shown), such as memory cards. Information, such as data, is transferred between the card reader controller engine 1 and storage device(s) through the master interface 13 and under the direction of the microprocessor 10.
The data compression/decompression engine 12, as its name suggests, decompresses information received by the card reader engine 1 from a host, through the interface controller 11, and information received by the card reader engine 1 from storage device(s), through the master interface 13. The engine 12 similarly compresses information that is to be sent from the card reader engine 1 to storage device(s) through the interface controller 11, under the direction of the microprocessor 10. Further, the engine 12 compresses information received by the card reader controller engine 1 from storage device(s) through the master interface 13 and under the direction of the microprocessor. Accordingly, the data compression/decompression engine 12 is coupled to the interface controller 11 and the master interface 13.
In embodiments of the invention, the host is compliant with, without limitation, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Serial ATA (SATA) or Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe). The engine 1 resides externally to the host.
The ROM 14 and the RAM 15 are both shown coupled to the microprocessor 10. The ROM 14 is typically used to maintain the program (software/firmware) executed by the microprocessor 10 and the RAM 15 is typically used to maintain data and/or program employed by the microprocessor. The microprocessor 10 operates by executing code (also referred to herein as “program”) residing in the ROM 14 and/or the RAM 15.
The card reader controller 1 is on a single integrated circuit (IC), in an embodiment of the invention. In another embodiment of the invention, it is on multiple ICs and/or printed circuit boards (PCBs). In yet another embodiment of the invention, the card reader controller 1 is on a single PCB. In still other embodiments of the invention, some or all portions of the card reader controller 1, shown in
In operation, the card reader controller 1 (also referred to herein as “memory card reader”) receives information through the interface controller 11 and under the direction of the microprocessor 10, data compression/decompression engine 12 decompresses the information as the information has been previously compressed. The decompressed information is then sent to the master interface 13, under the direction of the microprocessor 10, to a storage device, such as but not limited to, a memory card. During transmitting of information from the card controller engine 1, as earlier noted, the information is compressed before it is sent. The information is received either through the interface controller 11 or the master interface 13 and, under the direction of the microprocessor 10, it is sent to the information compression/decompression engine 12, which compresses the information and sends the compressed information to either the interface controller 11 or the master interface 13 depending on the direction of the information flow.
The data compression/decompression engine 12 may use one of many known algorithms to compress/decompress information. Without limitation, examples of compression/decompression algorithms are: Lempel-Ziv-Renau (LZR) and Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW).
In
In operation, analogous to the engine 1 of the embodiment of
The SD card 3 is a portable memory card used to save information and/or transfer information from one device to another. For example, the SD card 3 may maintain backed-up information that is to be retrieved due to a malfunction and therefore corruption of current information. In this respect, the information is saved onto the SD card 3 and when the SD card 3 is connected to the engine 22, the backed-up information is transmitted, through the SD host interface 26, to the data compression/decompression engine 12 assuming it is compressed information. The data compression/decompression engine 12 decompresses the information and transmits the decompressed information to the USB controller 24. The USB controller 24 ultimately transmits the decompressed information to the USB host 2, which can restore the information.
As an example of the improvement of the system of
The card reader controller engine 32 is analogous to the engine 22 of the embodiment of
As in the operation of the system 30 of
In embodiments using two eMMC cards, the data compression/decompression engine 12 compresses/decompresses information intended for or received from the eMMC card 38, through the eMMC host interface 44, and then compresses/decompresses information intended for or received from the eMMC card 40.
While not shown in
While two eMMC host interfaces are shown coupled to a single data compression/decompression engine, any suitable number of eMMC host interfaces may be coupled to a data compression/decompression engine. Additionally, while two data compression/decompression engines are employed in the system 50, any suitable number of data compression/decompression engines may be employed. Clearly, with the addition of data compression/decompression engines, the performance is increased.
Although the description has been described with respect to particular embodiments thereof, these particular embodiments are merely illustrative, and not restrictive.
As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, “a”, “an”, and “the” includes plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
Thus, while particular embodiments have been described herein, latitudes of modification, various changes, and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosures, and it will be appreciated that in some instances some features of particular embodiments will be employed without a corresponding use of other features without departing from the scope and spirit as set forth. Therefore, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the essential scope and spirit.
