WOM with retained messages

Abstract

Write-once memory (WOM) is a binary storage medium in which each memory cell is initially in state 0 and can be irreversibly programmed to state 1. This paper studies the problem of writing multiple messages into a WOM. Instead of writing a new message (and obliterating old ones) as in the traditional setup, the user wishes to retain access to some of the previously written messages. The capacity region is studied and code constructions are proposed for three canonical cases.