Program cycle skip
AssigneeSanDisk 3D LLC
InventorsGopinath Balakrishnan, Luca Fasoli, Tz-Yi Liu, Yuheng Zhang, Yan Li
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A non-volatile storage system includes technology for skipping programming cycles while programming a page (or other unit) of data. While programming a current subset of the page (or other unit) of data, the system will evaluate whether the next subsets of the page (or other unit) of data should be programmed into non-volatile storage elements or skipped. Subsets of the page (or other unit) of data that should not be skipped are programmed into non-volatile storage elements. Some embodiments include transferring the appropriate data to temporary latches/registers, in preparation for programming, concurrently with the evaluation of whether to program or skip the programming.
Claims4
A method for programming non-volatile storage elements, comprising:
- storing data in an intermediate storage device;
- transferring a first subset of the data from the intermediate storage device to a set of temporary storage devices;
- programming the first subset of the data stored in the set of temporary storage devices into a first subset of the non-volatile storage elements;
- without waiting for completion of the programming of the first subset of the data, evaluating whether a second subset of the data stored in the intermediate storage device should be programmed into a second subset of the non-volatile storage elements;
- prior to completion of the evaluating of the second subset of data and without waiting for completion of the programming of the first subset of the data, commencing transfer of the second subset of the data from the intermediate storage device to the set of temporary storage devices;
- and
- programming the second subset of the data into the second subset of the non-volatile storage elements if the evaluating of the second subset of data determined that the second subset of the data should be programmed into the second subset of the non-volatile storage elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.