JP3158329B2 - Data recording / reproducing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data recording / reproducing apparatus using a rewritable nonvolatile semiconductor memory.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, various semiconductor memories have been known as data recording elements for recording and reproducing data. Among semiconductor memories, ROM (Read Only) is a non-volatile memory that retains data even when the power is turned off.
Memory), a PROM (Programmable ROM) and the like. The PROM is capable of rewriting data on the user side.
ROM (UV Erasable PROM), EEPROM (El
(Electrical Erasable PROM). The UVEPROM is a type that collectively erases recorded contents with ultraviolet rays. To rewrite data on the user side, it is necessary to prepare an eraser with an ultraviolet lamp and a PROM programmer for writing. The device must be removed from the device, which is inconvenient.

[0003] On the other hand, the EEPROM is convenient because the recorded contents can be rewritten while being attached to the substrate, but there is an inconvenience that the rewriting is performed every byte. In recent years, a new type of EEPROM has been developed which can electrically erase all bytes or selected blocks or pages at a time and electrically write data to the erased portion. I have.

[0004] A new type of EEPROM is expected to be used for replacing a magnetic tape or a hard disk or a floppy disk used in an audio device because of its high writing / reading speed and suitable for large capacity. ing.

[0005]

However, when writing data to this new type of EEPROM, when there is no free space in the memory, that is, when data is to be re-recorded, the data in the page or block to be written is not read. It is necessary to erase old data once and then write new data after erasing. In this case, although it depends on the recording capacity, erasing for a page usually requires about one second to several seconds. At this time, if the data to be written is serial data such as music, the head of the write data is cut off by the time of erasing, which is a problem. In this case, an external memory has conventionally been used, but it is costly and inconvenient.

The present invention relates to a data recording / reproducing apparatus using a rewritable nonvolatile semiconductor memory, in which even when serial data such as music is written, data can be recorded by using only an internal memory without causing a truncation. It is intended to provide a recording / reproducing device.

[0007]

A data recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention includes a rewritable nonvolatile semiconductor memory having a main recording section and a sub recording section, and a control for accessing data to the nonvolatile semiconductor memory. Means for determining whether there is no free space in the data writing location of the main recording section at the time of writing data, and sub-recording new data while erasing the old data recorded in that location. It is characterized in that the write data is written to the main recording unit after the completion of the writing and the erasure, and the respective write data is labeled.

[0008]

Since the present invention is constructed as described above, when writing data, if there is no free space in the data writing place of the main recording section, the old data recorded in that place is erased while erasing the old data. The new data to be written is written to the sub recording unit, and after the erasure of the old data is completed, the continuation of the new data written to the sub recording unit is written to the main recording unit. Then, labeling relating to the write data of the main recording section and the write data of the sub recording section is performed. Thus, at the time of data reading, both data are taken out in conjunction with this label.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of a data recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the data recording / reproducing apparatus 10 includes a rewritable nonvolatile semiconductor memory (hereinafter, simply referred to as a memory) 15. It comprises a unit 11 and a sub recording unit 13. The main recording section 11 is formed by many pages 111, and the sub recording section 13 is formed by one page or a small number of pages. The configuration of the main recording unit 11 and the sub recording unit 13 may be provided separately at different positions in the memory 15 from the beginning, or a specific page may be designated as the sub recording unit 13. it can. The recording capacity of one page of the memory 15 varies depending on the type of the memory 15, but is generally several hundred bytes or more, and the total capacity of the memory 15 currently ranges from 256K to 16M bits. As described in the section of the prior art, the memory 15 also has a format in which data recorded therein is erased for each page or for several pages in blocks or for the entire memory. is there.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 17 denotes an A / D converter, which converts an audio input signal from the microphone 19 into a digital signal. Reference numeral 21 denotes a data processing circuit, which is a digital signal input from the A / D converter 17. Signal to memory 1
5 is a circuit for processing data that can be written into the data. 23 is a write generation circuit, and a data processing circuit 21
This is a circuit for writing the signal data from the memory 15 to the memory 15. Reference numeral 25 denotes a classification circuit, which passes the signal data input from the write generation circuit 23 on the basis of the control of the read circuit 27 to the path A to the main recording section 11 and the path B to the sub recording section 13.
This is a circuit for separating into

When the power is turned on and there is a signal for instructing data writing, the reading circuit 27 first determines whether or not the writing location of the main recording unit 11 is empty.
If it is not empty, the old data recorded at that location is deleted. When erasing, the classification circuit 25
To transfer the signal data from the writing circuit 23 to the path B.
And the data is written to the sub-recording unit 13.
When the erasing is completed, the sorting circuit 25 is controlled so that the signal data from the writing circuit 23 is sorted into the path A and written into the main recording unit 11.

Reference numeral 29 denotes a label confirmation circuit for labeling and accumulating addresses, file names, and the like of the written signal data. The first part of the write data is written to the sub-recording unit 13, and Is the main recording unit 11
When both are written, the data are labeled in association with each other. Reference numeral 31 denotes an information reading circuit, which reads out necessary data from the memory 15 and sends it to the sound reproducing circuit when a data reading instruction is given by an instruction circuit (not shown). At this time, the data is read out via the label confirmation circuit 29. If the data is written across the main recording unit 11 and the sub recording unit 13, the data in the sub recording unit 13 is first read. , And the data in the main recording unit 11 is read in conjunction with the read operation.

Next, the operation of this circuit will be further described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, when the power is turned on and a signal of a recording (writing) instruction is input, the process starts, and in step S1, an analog audio input signal is captured. Subsequently, in step S2, the analog audio signal is converted into a digital signal, and in step S3, data processing is performed so that it can be written to the memory 15. Next, in step S4, the data write location (page) of the main recording unit 11
Is read by the read circuit 27. If the data is empty, the process proceeds to step S8, and the input signal data is written to the write location of the main recording unit 11. Then, the address and file name of the data written in step S9 are stored in the label confirmation circuit 29, and the processing ends.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S4 that the data writing location of the main recording section 11 is not empty, then in step S5, the old data recorded in that location is erased. At the same time as this erasing process,
In step S6, the readout circuit 27
And makes the sub-recording unit 13 write the input signal data. Next, in step S7, it is determined whether or not the erasure of the old data recorded in the data writing location of the main recording unit 11 has been completed.
The process returns to step S5. If the erasure has been completed, the process proceeds to step S8, where the writing of data to the sub recording unit 13 is stopped, and the subsequent data is written to the main recording unit 11. Since the time required to erase one page of old data is about one second to several seconds, the recording capacity of the sub recording unit 13 may be extremely smaller than the recording capacity of the main recording unit 11. .

When the writing to the main recording unit 11 is completed, the address and file name of the written data are stored in the label confirmation circuit 29 in step S9, and the process ends. At this time, if the written data is divided into the main recording unit 11 and the sub recording unit 13, a label is attached in association with the data, and the data is read first from the data in the sub recording unit 13 at the time of reading. Subsequently, the data of the main recording unit 11 is read in conjunction with the data.

As described above, the data recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present embodiment is suitable for writing and recording music.
Even if there is no free space in the memory and the old data has to be erased once, the beginning of the music from which the old data is being erased is written to the sub-recording section, and after the old data is erased, the subsequent part is Since the data is written to the recording unit, the data is not cut off. Also, since both data are labeled and linked, they can be read in conjunction with each other at the time of reading. In this embodiment, the memory 15 is formed by one chip, but the main recording unit 11 and the sub recording unit 13 may be formed by different chips. The control unit according to the present invention includes the A / D converter 17, the data processing circuit 21, the writing circuit 23, the classification circuit 25, the reading circuit 27, the label confirmation circuit 29, and the information reading circuit 31 in the embodiment. Say.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Even when writing serial data such as music, it is possible to perform data recording without truncation using only the internal memory. For this reason, it is not necessary to use an external memory unlike the related art, so that the size can be reduced and the cost can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram of an embodiment of a data recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the circuit shown in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 data recording / reproducing device 11 main recording unit 13 sub recording unit 15 nonvolatile semiconductor memory 17 A / D converter 19 microphone 21 data processing circuit 23 write generation circuit 25 classification circuit 27 read circuit 29 label confirmation circuit 31 information read circuit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 12/00 597 G06F 3/08 G06F 12/02 530 G10L 19/00 G11C 16/02

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A rewritable nonvolatile semiconductor memory having a main recording unit and a sub recording unit, and a control unit for accessing data in the nonvolatile semiconductor memory, wherein the control unit writes data when writing data. When it is determined that there is no free space in the data writing location of the main recording section, new data is written to the sub-recording section while the old data recorded in that location is erased, and after the erasure is completed, the continuation of the write data is recorded in the main recording section. A data recording / reproducing apparatus characterized in that the data is written to a write section and labeling is performed on each write data.