Recovering from a non-volatile memory failure
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsRichard Coulson, Sanjeev Trika, Robert Faber
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Write operations store data in different physical memory locations. Each of the physical memory locations are associated with a logical address that is shared in common among the physical addresses. Sequence information stored in the physical memory location indicates which one of the write operations occurred last. The available erased memory location can be split into a list of erased memory locations available to be used and a list of erased memory locations not available to be used. Then, on a failure, only the list of erased memory locations available to be used needs to be analyzed to reconstruct the consumption states of memory locations.
Claims32
A method comprising:
- adapting a flash memory to maintain separate lists of erased memory locations available to be used and erased memory locations not available to be used.
An apparatus comprising:
- a controller;
- a volatile memory coupled to said controller;
- a non-volatile memory array coupled to said controller;
- and
- a first non-volatile memory location to store a checkpoint of the consumption status of memory locations and a list of erased memory locations available to be used, said list excluding erased memory locations erased since the storage of said checkpoint.
A computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, enable a processor-based system to:
- assign sequence numbers to write operations;
- and
- maintain separate lists of erased memory locations available to be used and erased memory locations not available to be used.
A method comprising:
- providing an indicator in a non-volatile memory to indicate whether consumption information was transferred from volatile to non-volatile memory before a shutdown.
An apparatus comprising:
- a non-volatile memory including volatile and non-volatile storage;
- and
- a storage location to indicate whether consumption information was copied from volatile storage to non-volatile storage before shutting down.
A system comprising:
- a processor;
- a static random access memory coupled to said processor;
- a non-volatile memory coupled to said processor, said non-volatile memory including a controller to maintain a checkpoint of the consumption status of memory locations and a list of less than all of the erased memory locations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.