Semiconductor device and control method of the same
A semiconductor device includes: a first sector ( 12 ) having data that are all to be erased and having flash memory cells; a second sector ( 14 ) having data that are all to be retained and having flash memory cells; a sector select circuit ( 16 ) selecting a pair of sectors from among sectors during erasing the data in the first sector, said pair of sectors being the first sector and the second sector; and an SRAM array (storage) ( 30 ) retaining the data of the second sector. The present invention can provide a semiconductor device in which a reduced number of sector select circuits is used so that the area of memory cell array can be reduced and provide a method of controlling the semiconductor device.
1. A computing device comprising:
a processor;
an input component;
an output component;
a memory comprising:
a volatile memory; and
a flash memory comprising:
a first sector having data that are all to be erased and having flash memory cells;
a second sector having data that are all to be retained and having flash memory cells;
a sector select circuit selecting a pair of sectors from among sectors during erasing the data in the first sector, the pair of sectors being the first sector and the second sector; and
a storage retaining the data of the second sector, wherein the data of the second sector is stored prior to erasing of the pair of sectors.
2. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is a personal computer (PC).
3. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is a personal digital assistant (PDA).
4. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is a gaming system.
5. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the erasing of data is performed upon data of the second sector being stored in the storage.
6. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is operable to capture an image.
7. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the computing device further comprises a wireless communication device.