US Patent 8189732 Non-volatile memory counter

A counter is efficiently implemented in non-volatile memory by using two binary counters and selectively using one or the other as a current counter. Writes to the binary counters are minimized by using two linear counters and using the state of the binary counters to determine which binary counter contains the current count. Write operations can be performed to the “not current” binary counter with the final write operation being to the linear counters. The linear counter write operations can be in program-only mode so that a power failure will not result in a loss of counts.