Abstract: A method of processing data using a memory controller includes determining at least one cell state to which each of a plurality of multi-level cells can be changed to based on a current cell state of each multi-level cell, where each multi-level cell includes a plurality of data pages; determining one of the data pages as having a stuck bit when a value of the data page has a single mapping value based on mapping values mapped to the at least one cell state and generating stuck bit data regarding the stuck bit; and encoding write data to be stored in the multi-level cells based on the stuck bit data.

Abstract: A method of operating a memory device comprises programming a first data signal to a first memory cell, attempting to program a second data signal to the first memory cell in a state where the first memory cell is not erased, and marking the first memory cell as blank upon failing to program the second data signal to the first memory cell.

Abstract: Methods of driving a memory include erasing a plurality of memory cells of a memory device, testing whether the memory cells have been erased, and programming the memory cells without erasing the memory cells again if more than a predetermined percentage of the memory cells, but less than all of the memory cells, were successfully erased.

Abstract: Apparatus for frame synchronization in a broadcast receiver where received frames comprise first and second synchronization words at predetermined locations in the frame, comprises: a correlator set with expected synchronization words for correlation with incoming symbols of said frame, to find probable locations of the first and second synchronization words within the frame, and a thresholder for thresholding the correlation according to both the first and second thresholds, thereby to allow, the receiver to synchronize with the frame.

Abstract: Apparatus for detecting impulse-type noise in a received signal comprises a decoder unit for sampling the signal and decoding to produce symbols, and an analysis unit for analyzing a distribution of the distances between the decoded symbols and the respective samples. The distribution is indicative of noise type, and thus can be analyzed to produce an output when the distribution indicates that the noise is impulse noise. If QAM is the decoding system, then for each decoded symbol there is a distance between the input and the decoded symbol, and the distribution of the distance indicates the type of noise. A random distribution is taken as indicative of the impulse noise.

Abstract: A frequency compensation circuit for compensating for a frequency offset in a received signal, the received signal including a periodically repeated pilot sequence for phase locking. The circuit comprises a phase estimator for estimating a phase of the received signal; a phase compensator, associated with the phase estimator, for compensating for the phase; a frequency estimator, comprising a maximum likelihood estimator comprising a first modification for estimating a frequency offset which is small relative to a symbol time, from the pilot sequence, the frequency estimator being connected downstream of the phase compensator; and a frequency compensator for applying a compensation to the signal, thereby to compensate for the frequency offset. The compensator is suitable for the exacting conditions of the DVB-S2 standard.

Abstract: A method of compensating for a frequency estimation bias due to sampled filtered noise of a channel filter, comprises: estimating autocorrelation functions for the impulse response of the channel filter over a range of frequencies; selecting one of the frequencies for use; estimating a noise spectral density of the sampled filtered noise; reading the autocorrelation function corresponding to the selected frequency; estimating the frequency bias as a function of the noise spectral density and the autocorrelation function for the selected frequency; and using the estimate to compensate for the frequency offset. The compensated signal is useful in such standard receiver functions as, automatic gain control (AGC), timing recovery, matched filtering/equalization and phase estimation and compensation.