# US 12,190,970 B2 · Media management

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- Number: US 12,190,970 B2
- Document ID: US12190970B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 17/824,384
- Filed: 2022-05-25
- Published: 2023-11-30
- Granted: 2025-01-07
- Earliest claimed: 2022-05-25
- Assignees: Micron Technology, Inc.
- Applicants: Micron Technology, Inc.
- Inventors: Donghua Zhou
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US12190970B2

## CPC

- G11C 16/349: {Arrangements for evaluating degradation, retention or wearout, e.g. by counting erase cycles}
- G06F 3/0614: {Improving the reliability of storage systems}
- G06F 3/0616: {in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF]}
- G06F 3/0619: {in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors}
- G06F 3/064: {Management of blocks}
- G06F 3/0653: {Monitoring storage devices or systems}
- G06F 3/0679: {Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]}
- G06F 11/3037: {where the computing system component is a memory, e.g. virtual memory, cache (accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures G06F12/00; checking stores for correct operation G11C29/00)}
- G06F 12/0246: {in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory}
- G11C 16/3495: {Circuits or methods to detect or delay wearout of nonvolatile EPROM or EEPROM memory devices, e.g. by counting numbers of erase or reprogram cycles, by using multiple memory areas serially or cyclically}
- G06F 2212/1036: Life time enhancement
- G06F 2212/7211: Wear leveling
- G11C 16/0483: {comprising cells having several storage transistors connected in series}
- G11C 16/16: for erasing blocks, e.g. arrays, words, groups
- G11C: STATIC STORES (semiconductor memory devices H10B)
- G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N)

## Abstract

A method includes determining a gap between a difference in a first health characteristic value and a second health characteristic value of blocks of memory cells and a health threshold associated with the blocks of memory cells, determining the gap is greater than or equal to a gap threshold from the health threshold, performing a pseudo media management operation on the blocks of memory cells, and determining an updated first health characteristic value of the blocks of memory cells.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A method, comprising:
determining a gap between:
a difference in a minimum erase count (EC) and a maximum EC of blocks of memory cells; and
a health threshold associated with the blocks of memory cells;
determining the gap is greater than or equal to a gap threshold from the health threshold;
performing a pseudo media management operation;
subsequent to performing the pseudo media management operation, determining an updated minimum EC of the blocks of memory cells;
determining an updated health threshold based on the health threshold, a value of an incremented erase counter, and a total memory cell block count;
determining the gap between the updated minimum EC and an updated maximum EC is less than a gap threshold from the updated health threshold;
determining the gap between the updated minimum EC and the updated maximum EC is greater than or equal to the gap threshold from the updated health threshold; and
responsive to the determination that the gap is greater than or equal to the gap threshold from the updated health threshold, refraining from performing a media management operation.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, comprising responsive to a determination that the gap is less than the gap threshold from the health threshold, performing a media management operation.

### Claim 3 (depends on 2)

The method of claim 2, wherein performing the media management operation further comprises performing a wear-leveling operation.

### Claim 4 (depends on 3)

The method of claim 3, wherein performing the wear-leveling operation further comprises performing a static-wear leveling operation.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The method of claim 1, further comprising performing the pseudo media management operation on the blocks of memory cells responsive to an occurrence of a memory operation.

### Claim 6 (depends on 5)

The method of claim 5, wherein the memory operation is a an erase operation associated with the blocks of memory cells.

### Claim 7 (depends on 5)

The method of claim 5, further comprising:
incrementing the maximum EC to an incremented maximum EC responsive to the occurrence of the memory operation;
determining an updated difference between the minimum EC and the incremented maximum EC;
determining an updated gap between the updated difference and the updated health threshold is less than the gap threshold from the updated health threshold;
responsive to determining the updated gap is less than the gap threshold from the health threshold, performing a wear-leveling operation on the blocks of memory cells.

### Claim 8

An apparatus, comprising:
blocks of non-volatile memory cells; and
a memory sub-system media management component coupled to the blocks of non-volatile memory cells, wherein the memory sub-system media management component is configured to:
determine a minimum erase count (EC) and a maximum EC of the blocks of non-volatile memory cells;
determine a difference between the minimum EC and the maximum EC;
determine a gap between the difference and a health threshold is greater than a gap threshold from the health threshold;
perform a quantity of pseudo media management operations;
increment the maximum EC by an amount equal to the quantity of pseudo media management operations to an incremented maximum EC;
determine an updated difference between the minimum EC and the incremented maximum EC;
determine an updated gap between the updated difference and the health threshold is less than the gap threshold from the health threshold;
responsive to determination of the updated gap is less than the gap threshold from the health threshold, determine an updated minimum EC; and
determine an updated health threshold based on the health threshold, a value of an incremented erase counter, and a total memory cell block count.

### Claim 9 (depends on 8)

The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the minimum EC corresponds to a lowest respective EC of the blocks of non-volatile memory cells.

### Claim 10 (depends on 9)

The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the maximum EC corresponds to a highest respective EC of the blocks of non-volatile memory cells.

### Claim 11 (depends on 8)

The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the memory sub-system media management component is configured to determine an updated minimum EC by performance of a media management operation.

### Claim 12 (depends on 11)

The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the memory sub-system media management component is configured to perform the quantity of pseudo media management operations in the absence of performance of a wear-leveling operation.

### Claim 13 (depends on 8)

The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the blocks of non-volatile memory cells further comprise blocks of NAND memory cells.

### Claim 14

A system comprising:
a memory sub-system comprising a plurality of memory components arranged to form a stackable cross-gridded array of blocks of non-volatile memory cells; and
a processing device coupled to the plurality of memory components, the processing device to perform operations comprising:
responsive to an occurrence of an erase operation, determining a value of a difference between a minimum erase count (EC) and a maximum EC of the blocks of memory cells;
determining a gap between the difference and a health threshold is greater than a gap threshold from the health threshold;
performing a quantity of pseudo media management operations:
subsequent to performing the quantity of pseudo media operations, determining an updated difference between an updated minimum EC and an updated maximum EC;
determining an updated health threshold based the health threshold, a value of an incremented erase counter, and a total memory cell block count;
determining an updated gap between the updated difference and the updated health threshold is less than the gap threshold from the updated health threshold; and
responsive to determining the updated gap is less than the gap threshold from the updated health threshold, performing a wear-leveling operation on the blocks of non-volatile memory cells.

### Claim 15 (depends on 14)

The system of claim 14, further comprising:
determining the difference between the minimum EC and the maximum EC at a first time; and
determining the updated difference at a second time that is subsequent to the first time.

### Claim 16 (depends on 14)

The system of claim 14, further comprising performing the quantity of pseudo media management operations until it is determined that the updated difference is less than the gap threshold from the updated health threshold.

### Claim 17 (depends on 14)

The system of claim 14, wherein the gap threshold is at least one health characteristic value less than the updated health threshold.

### Claim 18 (depends on 14)

The system of claim 14, wherein the health threshold is equal to a quantity of EC, and wherein the gap threshold is at least one EC less than the quantity of EC.