COMPRESSION-ENABLED BLENDING OF DATA IN NON-VOLATILE MEMORY

• US 20140250257A1
• Filed: 03/29/2012
• Published: 09/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SK Hynix NAND Product Solutions Corporation (SK Hynix Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Khan, Jawad B., Coulson, Richard L.
• Granted Patent: US 9,251,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1012 using codes or arrangements adapted for a specific type of error G06F11/1048 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0253 Garbage collection, i.e. reclamation of unreferenced memory
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/5628 Programming or writing circuits; Data input circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/10 Programming or data input circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 2211/5641 Multilevel memory having cells with different number of storage levels

Abstract

Described herein are embodiments of an apparatus configured for compression-enabled blending of data, a system including the apparatus configured for compression-enabled blending of data, and a method for compression-enabled blending of data. An apparatus configured for compression-enabled blending of data may include non-volatile memory configured to operate in a single-level cell mode and a multi-level cell mode, a compression module configured to compress data to generate compressed data, and a memory controller configured to write, in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than a threshold compression ratio, a first portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode, and a second portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the multi-level cell mode. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a compression module configured to compress data to generate compressed data; and

a memory controller configured to write, in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than a threshold compression ratio, a first portion of the compressed data to a non-volatile memory in a single-level cell mode, and a second portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in a multi-level cell mode.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being greater than the threshold compression ratio, the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the data comprises first data and wherein the compression module is configured to compress second data to generate compressed second data, and wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed second data being greater than the threshold compression ratio, the compressed second data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an error correction code (ECC) module configured to encode the data with an ECC codeword.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the ECC module is further configured to increase the strength of the ECC codeword, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, the increased-strength ECC codeword to the non-volatile memory.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory comprises a plurality of single-level memory cells configured to operate in the single-level cell mode and a plurality of multi-level memory cells configured to operate in the multi-level cell mode.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the non-volatile memory further comprises a plurality of triple-level memory cells configured to operate in a triple-level cell mode.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, a third portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the triple-level cell mode.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises NAND flash memory.

11. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having associated instructions that, when executed by a machine, result in operations including:

compressing data to generate compressed data; and

in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than a threshold compression ratio, writing a first portion of the compressed data to non-volatile memory in a single-level cell mode, and a second portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in a multi-level cell mode.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further include, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being greater than the threshold compression ratio, writing the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the data comprises first data and wherein the operations further include:

compressing second data to generate compressed second data; and

in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed second data being greater than the threshold compression ratio, writing the compressed second data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the data comprises data encoded with an error correction code (ECC) codeword.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further include, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, increasing the strength of the ECC codeword, and wherein the writing comprises writing the increased-strength ECC codeword to the non-volatile memory.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further include, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, writing a third portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in a triple-level cell mode.

17. A system comprising:

a solid-state drive including;

non-volatile memory configured to operate in a single-level cell mode and a multi-level cell mode;

a compression module configured to compress data to generate compressed data; and

a memory controller configured to write, in response to a reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than a threshold compression ratio, a first portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode, and a second portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the multi-level cell mode;

a host configured to issue a memory access request to the solid-state drive; and

a display device operatively coupled with the solid-state device and the network interface.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being greater than the threshold compression ratio, the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the single-level cell mode.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the solid-state drive includes an error correction code (ECC) module configured to encode the data with an ECC codeword.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the ECC module is further configured to increase the strength of the ECC codeword, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, the increased-strength ECC codeword.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises a plurality of single-level memory cells configured to operate in the single-level cell mode and a plurality of multi-level memory cells configured to operated in the multi-level cell mode.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises a plurality of triple-level memory cells configured to operate in a triple-level cell mode.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the memory controller is further configured to write, in response to the reduction ratio of the compressed data being less than the threshold compression ratio, a third portion of the compressed data to the non-volatile memory in the triple-level cell mode.

25. The system of claim 17, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises NAND flash memory and further comprising a network interface operatively coupled with the solid-state drive and configured to communicatively coupled the system with a network.

26-27. -27. (canceled)