A hardware model of a memory comprises: first circuitry configured to supply a memory status value for the memory which is changed upon a full-memory erase operation; second circuitry configured to supply a sector status value for each memory sector of the memory which is changed to a value equal to the memory status value when a write operation is performed on the each memory sector of the memory; and third circuitry configured to supply, when a read operation is performed on a memory sector of the memory, a value stored in the memory sector as output of the read operation if the sector status value for the memory sector is equal to the memory status value or a predefined value as the output of the read operation in other situations.