US 6,172,906 B2 · Increasing the memory performance of flash memory devices by writing sectors simultaneously to multiple flash memory devices

Abstract

In one embodiment of the present invention, a memory storage system for storing information organized in sectors within a nonvolatile memory bank is disclosed. The memory bank is defined by sector storage locations spanning across one or more rows of a nonvolatile memory device, each the sector including a user data portion and an overhead portion. The sectors being organized into blocks with each sector identified by a host provided logical block address (LBA). Each block is identified by a modified LBA derived from the host-provided LBA and said virtual PBA, said host-provided LBA being received by the storage device from the host for identifying a sector of information to be accessed, the actual PBA developed by said storage device for identifying a free location within said memory bank wherein said accessed sector is to be stored. The storage system includes a memory controller coupled to the host; and a nonvolatile memory bank coupled to the memory controller via a memory bus, the memory bank being included in a nonvolatile semiconductor memory unit, the memory bank has storage blocks each of which includes a first row-portion located in said memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in each of the memory unit, each of the memory row-portions provides storage space for two of said sectors, wherein the speed of performing write operations is increased by writing sector information to the memory unit simultaneously.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A memory storage system for storing information organized in sectors within a nonvolatile memory bank defined by sector storage locations spanning across one or more rows of a nonvolatile memory device, each said sector including a user data portion and an overhead portion, said sectors being organized into blocks, each sector identified by a host provided logical block address (LBA) and an actual physical block address (PBA), said host-provided LBA being received by said storage device from the host for identifying a sector of information to be accessed, said actual PBA developed by said storage device for identifying a free location within said memory bank wherein said accessed sector is to be stored, said storage system comprising:

memory control circuitry;
and
a nonvolatile memory bank coupled to said memory control circuitry and being included in a non-volatile semiconductor memory unit, said memory bank having storage blocks each of which includes a first row-portion located in said memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in said memory unit, each said memory row-portions providing storage space for two of said sectors,
wherein the speed of performing write operations is increased by writing a plurality of sector information to the memory device simultaneously.

1 more element

In a storage system including a non-volatile memory bank and a controller coupled to said memory bank via a memory bus, said memory bank being included in a non-volatile memory unit, said memory bank having storage locations defined by blocks, each block for storing a plurality of sectors of information, each sector having a user data portion and an overhead portion, each block including at least one memory row location having a first row-portion located in said memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in said memory unit, a process of writing a first sector and a second sector to said memory bank during a single write operation, said process including the steps of:

simultaneously transmitting a write command to said memory unit;
addressing one of said memory row locations of said memory bank by simultaneously addressing corresponding first and second row portions of said addressed row location;
transmitting a first data byte of said first sector to said memory unit while simultaneously transmitting a second data byte of said first sector to said memory unit and after transmission of all of the bytes of the first sector, transmitting the first byte of said second sector to said memory unit while simultaneously transmitting a second byte of said second sector to said memory unit,
wherein two sectors of information are stored in one memory row location of said memory bank by simultaneously transmitting two byte of sector information thereby increasing the speed of write operations of the storage system.

1 more element

In a storage system including a nonvolatile memory bank and a controller coupled to said memory bank via a memory bus, said memory bank being included in a nonvolatile memory unit, said memory bank having blocks for storing sectors of information each of which includes a user data portion and an overhead portion, each said block having associated therewith a logical block address (LBA) and a physical block address (PBA), said LBA provided by a host to said controller for identifying a sector of information to be accessed, said PBA developed by said storage device for identifying a particular block location within said memory bank wherein said accessed block is to be stored, each block including at least one memory row location having a first row-portion located in said memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in said memory unit, said controller including a data buffer;

a process of writing sector-organized information to said memory bank, said process including the steps of:
receiving host-provided LBA values from said host, each said host-provided LBA value for identifying a sector of information;
modifying a current host-provided LBA to identify a block of sectors of information;
providing a map having map row locations identified by said modified LBA values or virtual PBA values, said map used as a look-up-table for storing virtual PBA values corresponding to modified LBA values;
setting a sector count value equal to the number of sectors of information identified by the host;
searching for a free block within said memory bank identified by a current virtual PBA;
storing said current virtual PBA, corresponding to said free block, in a map row location identified by said modified current LBA in said map;
determining whether said current host-provided LBA is even and whether said sector count is greater than one;
if said current actual PBA value is even and said sector count is greater than one, simultaneously writing two sectors of information, one sector identified by said current host-provided LBA and a second sector of information identified by said current host-provided LBA plus one, said first sector being written to said memory unit and said second sector being written to said memory;
decrementing said sector count by two;
determining whether said sector count is equal to zero;
if said sector count is not equal to zero, increasing said current host-provided LBA value by two to point to the next sector that is to be written;
if said current host-provided LBA value or said sector count is not greater than one,
simultaneously writing even data bytes of a current sector of information identified by said current host-provided LBA to said memory unit and odd data bytes of said current sector to said memory unit;
decrementing said sector count by one;
determining whether said sector count is equal to zero, and
if said sector count is not equal to zero, increasing said current host-provided LBA by one to point to the next sector of information that is to be written.

14 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Increasing the memory performance of flash memory devices by writing sectors simultaneously to multiple flash memory devices

Life of this patent

Increasing the memory performance of flash memory devices by writing sectors simultaneously to multiple flash memory devices

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21