1. A method of operating a block-erasable nonvolatile memory array comprising:
programming first data to a first plurality of blocks in parallel, each of the first plurality of blocks from a different one of a plurality of planes;
programming second data to a second plurality of blocks in parallel, each of the second plurality of blocks from a different one of the plurality of planes;
subsequently copying data from a first block of the first plurality of blocks, without copying data from other ones of the first plurality of blocks, the first block located in a first plane of the plurality of planes; and
in parallel with copying data from the first block, accessing a second block of the second plurality of blocks, the second block located in a second plane of the plurality of planes.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the copying of data from the first block is part of garbage collection.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising, subsequent to copying data from the first block, erasing the first block.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein data copied from the first block is copied to a third block in the first plane, and accessing the second block includes copying data to a fourth block in the second plane.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the second block includes writing data to the second block.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein data written to the second block is received from a host as part of a host write operation.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the second block includes reading data from the second block.
8. The method of claim 4 wherein the first plurality of blocks are linked together in memory management when the first plurality of blocks are programmed, the second plurality of blocks are linked together in memory management when the second plurality of blocks are programmed, and subsequently the first block is replaced by the third block in memory management and the second block is replaced by the fourth block in memory management.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of planes include all planes of the memory array and the first data is programmed with maximum parallelism.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein data is copied from the first block and from at least one additional block to a replacement block, where at least one of the first block and the at least one additional block is a Single Level Cell block and the replacement block is a Multi Level Cell block.
11. The method of claim 10 wherein the additional block is a Single Level Cell block and the additional block contains data from two or more logical groups.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the first block is selected for copying in response to a determination that the additional block contains more updated data for the first block than for any other block.
13. The method of claim 10 wherein the first block is selected for copying in response to a determination that updated data for the first block is the least recently updated data in the additional block.
14. The method of claim 1 wherein data is copied from the first block and from at least one additional block to a replacement block, where at least one of the first block or the at least one additional block are part of a write cache.
15. The method of claim 1 wherein the first plane is in a first bank of planes that share a first controller and a first bus, and the second plane is in a second bank of planes that share a second controller and a second bus.
16. The method of claim 1 wherein the first data consists of a first logical group and the second data consists of a second logical group.
17. A nonvolatile memory system comprising:
a block erasable nonvolatile memory array having blocks arranged in separate planes, each plane having separate readwrite circuits;
a first metablock formed from a first plurality of blocks, one block from each of a plurality of planes, the first plurality of blocks linked for parallel programming;
a second metablock formed from a second plurality of blocks, one from each of the plurality of planes, the second plurality of blocks linked for parallel programming;
a first replacement block that replaces a first block of the first plurality of blocks, without replacing other blocks of the first plurality of blocks;
a second replacement block that replaces a second block of the second plurality of blocks, without replacing other blocks of the second plurality of blocks; and
means for replacing the first block with the replacement block in parallel with replacing the second block with the second replacement block.
18. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 17 wherein the first block and the first replacement block are in a first plane, and the second block and the second replacement block are in a second plane.
19. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 18 wherein the first plane is in a first bank consisting of two or more planes, that perform erase operations in parallel on a block from each of the two or more planes of the first bank, and the second plane is in a second bank consisting of two or more planes that perform erase operations in parallel on a block from each of the two or more planes of the second bank.
20. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 19 wherein the first bank has a first bus and the second bank has a second bus.
21. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 19 wherein first bank has a first controller and the second bank has a second controller.
22. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 17 further comprising a memory management structure that records linking of the first plurality of blocks and linking of the second plurality of blocks, the memory management structure further recording the replacement of the first block by the first replacement block and the replacement of the second block by the second replacement block.
23. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 17 wherein the plurality of planes are grouped into banks individually consisting of two or more planes that perform erase operations in parallel on a block from each of the two or more planes, a sub-metablock formed by the blocks from each of the two or more planes erased in parallel being the minimum unit used for erase.
24. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 23 wherein each of the banks has a dedicated bus.
25. The nonvolatile memory system of claim 23 wherein each of the banks has a dedicated controller.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. An inter-vehicular distance measurement system including an inter-vehicular distance measuring light transmission apparatus and inter-vehicular distance measurement apparatus mounted on vehicles,
said inter-vehicular distance measuring light transmission apparatus comprising:
left and right tail lights each irradiating light rearwardly of the vehicle;
a modulating signal generation section that generates two-phase modulating signals presenting a time difference therebetween corresponding to a distance between the left and right tail lights; and
a modulation section that, in accordance with respective ones of the two-phase modulating signals, modulates driving signals to be given to the left and right tail lights,
said inter-vehicular distance measurement apparatus comprising:
an image sensor that takes an image of an area in front of the vehicle;
an extraction section that extracts images of the left and right tail lights of a preceding vehicle from the image taken by said image sensor;
an inter-tail-light-image distance calculation section that calculates a distance, in the image taken by said image sensor, between the images of the left and right tail lights extracted by said extraction section;
a time difference detection section that detects a time difference between respective intensity variations over time of the images of the left and right tail lights extracted by said extraction section;
an inter-tail-light distance calculation section that calculates the distance between the left and right tail lights on the basis of the time difference detected by said time difference detection section; and
an inter-vehicular distance calculation section that calculates an inter-vehicular distance to the preceding vehicle on the basis of the distance between the images of the left and right tail lights of the preceding vehicle calculated by said inter-tail-light-image distance calculation section and the distance between the left and right tail lights calculated by said inter-tail-light distance calculation section.
2. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 1 wherein said inter-vehicular distance measurement apparatus further comprises an access control section that causes said image sensor to selectively perform a full access process for outputting pixel signals of all pixels constituting one screen and a partial access process for outputting pixel signals of a portion of all pixels of the image of the left tail light extracted by said extraction section and pixel signals of a portion of all pixels of the image of the right tail light extracted by said extraction section, and
wherein said time difference detection section detects the respective intensity variations over time of the images of the left and right tail lights on the basis of the pixel signals of the portion of all the pixels of the image of the left tail light and the pixel signals of the portion of all the pixels of the image of the right tail light which are supplied by said image sensor in the partial access process.
3. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 2 wherein, in the partial access process, said image sensor outputs pixel signals of a plurality of pixels for each of the image of the left tail light and the image of the right tail light, and
wherein said time difference detection section detects the respective intensity variations over time of the images of the left and right tail lights on the basis of a pixel signal obtained by averaging the pixel signals of the plurality of pixels of the image of the left tail light supplied by said image sensor and a pixel signal obtained by averaging the pixel signals of the plurality of pixels of the image of the right tail light supplied by said image sensor.
4. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 2 wherein said access control section causes said image sensor to repeat the full access process and the partial access process in an alternate fashion.
5. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 4 wherein said access control section causes said image sensor to perform the full access process at least once and then repetitively perform the partial access process a plurality of times.
6. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 2 wherein said extraction section extracts the images of the left and right tail lights on the basis of pixel signals of the image taken by said image sensor in the full access process, and said inter-tail-light-image distance calculation section calculates the distance between the images of the left and right tail lights extracted by said extraction section in the full access process.
7. The inter-vehicular distance measurement system as claimed in claim 2 wherein said time difference detection section detects the time difference between the respective intensity variations over time of the images of the left and right tail lights on the basis of pixel signals of the image taken by said image sensor in the partial access process.
8. A method for measuring a distance between a preceding vehicle and a succeeding vehicle by use of left and right tail lights, each irradiating light rearwardly of the preceding vehicle, and an image sensor that takes an image of an area in front of the succeeding vehicle, said method comprising:
a step of generating two-phase modulating signals presenting a time difference therebetween corresponding to a distance between the left and right tail lights;
a step of, in accordance with respective ones of the two-phase modulating signals, modulating driving signals to be given to the left and right tail lights;
a step of extracting images of the left and right tail lights of the preceding vehicle from the image taken by the image sensor;
an inter-image calculation step of calculating a distance, in the image taken by the image sensor, between the images of the left and right tail lights extracted by said step of extracting;
a step of detecting a time difference between respective intensity variations over time of the extracted images of the left and right tail lights;
an inter-tail-light distance calculation step of calculating the distance between the left and right tail lights on the basis of the time difference detected by said step of detecting; and
a step of calculating an inter-vehicular distance between the preceding vehicle and the succeeding vehicle on the basis of the distance between the images of the left and right tail lights of the preceding vehicle calculated by said inter-image distance calculation step and the distance between the left and right tail lights calculated by said inter-tail-light distance calculation step.
9. A computer-readable storage medium containing a program for causing a computer to perform a method for measuring a distance between a preceding vehicle and a succeeding vehicle by use of left and right tail lights, each irradiating light rearwardly of the preceding vehicle, and an image sensor that takes an image of an area in front of the succeeding vehicle, said method comprising:
a step of generating two-phase modulating signals presenting a time difference therebetween corresponding to a distance between the left and right tail lights;
a step of, in accordance with respective ones of the two-phase modulating signals, modulating driving signals to be given to the left and right tail lights;
a step of extracting images of the left and right tail lights of the preceding vehicle from the image taken by the image sensor;
an inter-image calculation step of calculating a distance, in the image taken by the image sensor, between the images of the left and right tail lights extracted by said step of extracting;
a step of detecting a time difference between respective intensity variations over time of the extracted images of the left and right tail lights;
an inter-tail-light distance calculation step of calculating the distance between the left and right tail lights on the basis of the time difference detected by said step of detecting; and
a step of calculating an inter-vehicular distance between the preceding vehicle and the succeeding vehicle on the basis of the distance between the images of the left and right tail lights of the preceding vehicle calculated by said inter-image distance calculation step and the distance between the left and right tail lights calculated by said inter-tail-light distance calculation step.