Paired metablocks in non-volatile storage device

• US 10,126,970 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2016
• Issued: 11/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Shaharabany, Amir, Oshinsky, Hadas, Duzly, Yacov, Fitzpatrick, James
• Primary Examiner(s): DUNCAN, MARC M
• Application Number:
  US15/348,875
• Publication Number:
  US 20170168716A1
• Time in Patent Office: 733 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1068 in sector programmable memories, e.g. flash disk G06F11/1072 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0616 in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 2029/4402 Internal storage of test result, quality data, chip identification, repair information
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/52 Protection of memory contents; Detection of errors in memory contents

Abstract

Systems, methods and/or devices are used to pair metablocks in a non-volatile storage device. In one aspect, a method of data organization of a memory device includes, writing data to and reading data from respective metablocks in a set of metablocks. The method further includes while performing said writing and reading: (1) accessing one or more management data structures in controller memory, identifying two or more metablock pairs; (2) accessing and updating metablock status information indicating which metablocks of the set of metablocks are closed, free and open; and (3) accessing and updating a valid count, corresponding to a number of sub-block memory units having valid data for each of a plurality of metablocks in the set of metablocks.

Claims

1. A method of data organization of a memory device, the memory device comprising:

a plurality of memory die, each memory die including a plurality of memory blocks, each memory block including a plurality of memory pages; and

a set of metablocks, each metablock including a specified set of N memory blocks in N different memory die, where N is an integer greater than 2, and the set of metablocks include two or more metablock pairs, each metablock pair including a first metablock and a second metablock that share one or more individual memory blocks;

the method comprising;

writing data to and reading data from respective metablocks in the set of metablocks;

while performing said writing and reading,

accessing one or more management data structures in controller memory, distinct from the plurality of memory die, identifying two or more metablock pairs;

accessing and updating metablock status information indicating which metablocks of the set of metablocks are closed, free and open; and

accessing and updating a valid count, corresponding to a number of sub-block memory units having valid data, for each of a plurality of metablocks in the set of metablocks.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of metablocks includes multiple unpaired metablocks, each unpaired metablock including a respective set of N memory blocks, none of which are included in any other metablock in the set of metablocks.

3. The method of claim 1, further including:

buffering write data in a write buffer; and

writing, in parallel, to a plurality of the memory blocks in a respective metablock in the set of metablocks, the write data in the write buffer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in accordance with a determination that a block in a metablock pair fails a predefined health criterion,

identifying the metablock pair that includes the block that fails the predefined health criterion;

and

updating information, stored in the one or more management data structures in controller memory, to identify, for a respective metablock of the two metablocks in the identified metablock pair, a modified set of memory blocks as the set of memory blocks included in the respective metablock of the metablocks in the identified metablock pair.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in accordance with detection of a trigger condition,

with respect to an identified metablock pair:

copying all valid data in at least the first metablock of the identified metablock pair to new memory locations, and unmapping corresponding sub-block memory units in the first metablock; and

pairing the first metablock with another metablock other than the second metablock to form a new metablock pair.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the trigger condition includes detection of a block, in at least one of the first metablock or second metablock, that fails a predefined health criterion, and the first metablock and other metablock in the new metablock pair do not include the block that failed the predefined health criterion.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a garbage collection operation on at least one metablock of a respective metablock pair by:

selecting a closed metablock in accordance with a determination made using the valid count of the selected metablock, wherein the selected metablock is the first metablock of the respective metablock pair;

copying all valid data in the selected metablock to new memory locations and unmapping corresponding sub-block memory units in the selected metablock, wherein the unmapped sub-block memory units include one or more unmapped sub-block memory units in one or more blocks shared by the first metablock and second metablock of the respective metablock pair;

setting the valid count of the selected metablock to zero; and

updating the valid count of the second metablock in the respective metablock pair in accordance with the unmapped sub-block memory units in the one or more blocks shared by the first metablock and second metablock of the respective metablock pair.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising, after performing the garbage collection operation on the at least one metablock of the respective metablock pair,

opening the first metablock of the respective metablock pair;

writing data to the first metablock of the respective metablock pair, wherein the written data includes data written to one or more blocks shared by the first metablock and second metablock of the respective metablock pair; and

in accordance with said writing;

increasing a valid count of the first metablock of the respective metablock pair in accordance with a number of sub-blocks of the first metablock of the respective metablock pair to which data is written; and

increasing a valid count of the second metablock of the respective metablock pair in accordance with a number of sub-blocks of the one or more shared blocks to which data is written.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising,

opening the first metablock of a respective metablock pair;

writing data to the first metablock of the respective metablock pair, wherein the written data includes data written to one or more blocks shared by the first metablock and second metablock of the respective metablock pair; and

in accordance with said writing;

increasing a valid count of the first metablock of the respective metablock pair in accordance with a number of sub-blocks of the first metablock of the respective metablock pair to which data is written; and

increasing a valid count of the second metablock of the respective metablock pair in accordance with a number of sub-blocks of the one or more shared blocks to which data is written.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the second metablock of the respective metablock pair remains closed while the first metablock of the respective metablock pair is open, the method further including:

garbage collecting the second metablock of the respective metablock pair, and,

in conjunction with garbage collecting the second metablock of the respective metablock pair,

updating the valid count for the second metablock of the respective metablock pair to zero, and

updating the valid count for the first metablock of the respective metablock pair to a value less than a value of the valid count prior to garbage collecting the second metablock of the respective metablock pair.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein updating the valid count for the first metablock of the respective metablock pair comprises reducing the valid count for the first metablock of the respective metablock pair by a quantity corresponding to an amount of data garbage collected from the one or more blocks shared by the first metablock and second metablock of the respective metablock pair.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in conjunction with formatting the memory device, placing unpaired metablocks in the set of metablocks on a free list of metablocks, and placing paired metablocks in the set of metablocks on a closed list of metablocks, and successively selecting from the free list respective metablocks to which to write data.

13. A storage system, comprising:

a plurality of memory die, each memory die including a plurality of memory blocks, each memory block including a plurality of memory pages; and

a set of metablocks, each metablock including a specified set of N memory blocks in N different memory die, where N is an integer greater than 2, and the set of metablocks include two or more metablock pairs, each metablock pair including a first metablock and a second metablock that share one or more individual memory blocks;

a controller having one or more processors and controller memory storing one or more programs, the one or more programs including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the storage system to;

write data to and read data from respective metablocks in the set of metablocks; and

while performing said writing and reading,

access and update metablock status information indicating which metablocks of the set of metablocks are closed, free and open; and

access and update a valid count, corresponding to a number of sub-block memory units having valid data, for each of a plurality of metablocks in the set of metablocks.

14. The storage system of claim 13, wherein the one or more programs include a metablock module having instructions for managing the metablock pairs, including maintaining valid counts of valid data in the metablock pairs when data is written to either metablock of any metablock pair and when data is garbage collected from either metablock of any metablock pair.

15. The storage system of claim 13, wherein the set of metablocks includes multiple unpaired metablocks, each unpaired metablock including a respective set of N memory blocks, none of which are included in any other metablock in the set of metablocks.

16. The storage system of claim 13, wherein the one or more programs, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the storage system to:

buffer write data in a write buffer; and

write, in parallel, to a plurality of the memory blocks in a respective metablock in the set of metablocks, the write data in the write buffer.

17. The storage system of claim 13, wherein the one or more programs, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the storage system to perform a set of operations in accordance with a determination that a block in a metablock pair fails a predefined health criterion, the set of operations including:

identifying the metablock pair that includes the block that fails the predefined health criterion; and

updating information, stored in one or more management data structures in controller memory, to identify, for a respective metablock of the metablocks in the identified metablock pair, a modified set of memory blocks as the set of memory blocks included in the respective metablock of the metablocks in the identified metablock pair.

18. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing one or more programs for execution by one or more processors of a storage system having one or more controllers, the one or more programs including instructions for:

writing data to and reading data from respective metablocks in a set of metablocks;

while performing said writing and reading,

accessing one or more management data structures in controller memory, distinct from a plurality of memory die, identifying two or more metablock pairs;

accessing and updating metablock status information indicating which metablocks of the set of metablocks are closed, free and open; and

accessing and updating a valid count, corresponding to a number of sub-block memory units having valid data, for each of a plurality of metablocks in the set of metablocks.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the set of metablocks includes multiple unpaired metablocks, each unpaired metablock including a respective set of N memory blocks, none of which are included in any other metablock in the set of metablocks.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the one or more programs, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the storage system to:

buffer write data in a write buffer; and

write, in parallel, to a plurality of the memory blocks in a respective metablock in the set of metablocks, the write data in the write buffer.