APPARATUSES AND METHODS FOR DATA MOVEMENT

• US 20170235515A1
• Filed: 02/17/2016
• Published: 08/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lodestar Licensing Group LLC
• Original Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
• Inventors: Hush, Glen E., Lea, Perry V.
• Granted Patent: US 9,971,541 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0625 Power saving in storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0685 Hybrid storage combining heterogeneous device types, e.g. hierarchical storage, hybrid arrays
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/4076 Timing circuits for regeneration management G11C11/406
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/4091 Sense or sense/refresh amplifiers, or associated sense circuitry, e.g. for coupled bit-line precharging, equalising or isolating
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/4097 Bit-line organisation, e.g. bit-line layout, folded bit lines
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 2207/2236 Copy
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 2207/2245 Memory devices with an internal cache buffer
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 7/1006 Data managing, e.g. manipulating data before writing or reading out, data bus switches or control circuits therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 7/1072 for memories with random access ports synchronised on clock signal pulse trains, e.g. synchronous memories, self timed memories

Abstract

The present disclosure includes apparatuses and methods for data movement. An example apparatus includes a memory device that includes a plurality of subarrays of memory cells and sensing circuitry coupled to the plurality of subarrays. The sensing circuitry includes a sense amplifier and a compute component. The memory device also includes a plurality of subarray controllers. Each subarray controller of the plurality of subarray controllers is coupled to a respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays and is configured to direct performance of an operation with respect to data stored in the respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays. The memory device is configured to move a data value corresponding to a result of an operation with respect to data stored in a first subarray of the plurality of subarrays to a memory cell in a second subarray of the plurality of subarrays.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory device, comprising;

a plurality of subarrays of memory cells;

sensing circuitry coupled to the plurality of subarrays, the sensing circuitry including a sense amplifier and a compute component; and

a plurality of subarray controllers, wherein each subarray controller of the plurality of subarray controllers is coupled to a respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays and is configured to direct performance of an operation with respect to data stored in the respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays; and

wherein the memory device is configured to move a data value corresponding to a result of an operation with respect to data stored in a first subarray of the plurality of subarrays to a memory cell in a second subarray of the plurality of subarrays.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

a first subarray controller is configured to execute a first set of instructions to direct performance of a first operation; and

a second subarray controller is configured to execute a second set of instructions to direct performance of a second operation; and

wherein the second operation is different than the first operation.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the sensing circuitry is configured to couple to the plurality of subarrays to implement parallel movement of data values stored in the first subarray, upon which a first operation has been performed, to a plurality of memory cells in the second subarray.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a shared I/O line configured to couple to the sensing circuitry of each of the plurality of subarrays to selectably implement movement of a data value stored in the first subarray, upon which a first operation has been performed, to the memory cell in the second subarray.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a plurality of shared I/O lines configured to couple to the sensing circuitry of each of the plurality of subarrays to selectably implement parallel movement of a plurality of data values stored in the first subarray, upon which a first operation has been performed, to a plurality of memory cells in the second subarray.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory device further comprises:

a sensing component stripe configured to include a number of a plurality of sense amplifiers and compute components of the sensing circuitry that corresponds to a number of a plurality of columns of the memory cells; and

wherein the number of sense amplifiers and compute components is selectably coupled to a plurality of shared I/O lines.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the sensing circuitry comprises a plurality of sensing component stripes; and

a number of the plurality of sensing component stripes in a bank of the memory device corresponds to a number of the plurality of subarrays in the bank.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory device further comprises:

column select circuitry to selectably sense data in a particular column of memory cells of a subarray by being selectably coupled to at least one of the sense amplifier and compute component coupled to a respective sense line of the particular column.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the memory device further comprises:

a sensing component stripe including a number of sense amplifiers and compute components of the sensing circuitry configured to move an amount of data sensed from a row of the first subarray in parallel to a plurality of shared I/O lines; and

wherein the amount of data corresponds to at least a thousand bit width of the plurality of shared I/O lines.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a number of a plurality of shared I/O lines corresponds to a number of bits wide shared I/O line.

11. An apparatus, comprising:

a controller coupled to a bank of a memory device to execute a command for movement of data in the bank, wherein the bank in the memory device comprises;

a plurality of subarrays of memory cells;

a plurality of subarray controllers, wherein each subarray controller of the plurality of subarray controllers is coupled to a respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays and is configured to direct performance of an operation with respect to data stored in the respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays; and

sensing circuitry on pitch with the plurality of subarrays and coupled to the plurality of subarrays via a plurality of sense lines, the sensing circuitry including a sense amplifier and a compute component coupled to a respective sense line of the plurality of sense lines; and

wherein the controller is configured to provide a respective set of instructions to each of the plurality of subarray controllers.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the plurality of subarrays of memory cells are subarrays of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cells.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein a host provides the data to the controller for the controller to execute a command for systolic movement of the data.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a cache associated with the controller configured to;

receive data from a host; and

signal to the controller that the data is received to initiate performance of a stored sequence of a plurality of operations.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the controller is further configured to:

determine, based upon input of the data, which of a plurality of sequences of operations performed by the subarray controllers coupled to the plurality of subarrays is appropriate for processing of the data; and

provide the data to a particular subarray based upon a particular subarray controller coupled to the particular subarray performing a first operation in the appropriate stored contiguous sequence of operations.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the memory device further comprises:

connection circuitry configured to connect sensing circuitry coupled to a particular column in a first subarray to a number of rows in a corresponding column in a second subarray; and

wherein;

the connection circuitry is configured to move a data value to a selected row and the corresponding column in the second subarray for execution of a next operation in a sequence of operations;

the movement of the data value is directed by a subarray controller of the first subarray executing a set of instructions when the data value is stored in the sensing circuitry; and

the controller selects a particular row intersected by the corresponding column in the second subarray to receive the data value.

17. An apparatus, comprising:

a controller coupled to a bank of a memory device to execute a command for movement of data from a start location to an end location in the bank, wherein the bank in the memory device comprises;

a plurality of subarrays of memory cells;

a plurality of subarray controllers, wherein each subarray controller of the plurality of subarray controllers is coupled to a respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays and is configured to direct performance of an operation with respect to data stored in the respective subarray of the plurality of subarrays; and

sensing circuitry coupled to the plurality of subarrays via a plurality of sense lines, the sensing circuitry including a sense amplifier and a compute component coupled to a respective sense line of the plurality of sense lines; and

wherein the plurality of subarray controllers is configured to couple to the controller to receive a respective set of instructions by each of the plurality of subarray controllers to direct performance of the operation with respect to data stored in each of the plurality of subarrays.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the plurality of subarrays comprises:

a plurality of sets of instructions to execute performance of different sequences of operations stored by the subarray controllers for a plurality of contiguous subsets of the subarrays.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the controller is further configured to:

provide data to a particular subarray based upon a particular subarray controller coupled to the particular subarray performing a first operation in the appropriate stored contiguous sequence of operation; and

wherein the particular subarray controller coupled to the particular subarray is the start location in the bank for execution of first set of instructions to direct performance of a first operation in the appropriate stored contiguous sequence of operations.

20. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

a particular subarray that is the start location has at least one stored contiguous sequence of operations for a plurality of subarrays between the start location and a beginning of a first subarray in the bank.

21. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein:

performance of a stored contiguous sequence of a number of operations is configured to yield an output at the end location in the subarrays of the bank; and

a particular subarray at the end location has at least one subarray between the end location and an end of a last subarray in the bank.

22. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the apparatus comprises:

a cache associated with the controller further configured to;

receive output of completed execution of a sequence of operations from the plurality of subarrays; and

signal to the controller to initiate another iteration of performance of the sequence of operations by input of new received data to selected memory cells in a subarray at the start location.

23. A method for operating a memory device, comprising:

executing non-transitory instructions by a processing resource for;

performing a first operation on data values stored by memory cells in a particular row in a first subarray by execution of a first set of instructions, wherein the first set of instructions is executed by a first subarray controller for the first sub array;

moving the data values, upon which the first operation has been performed, to a selected row of memory cells in a second subarray using a first sensing component stripe for the first subarray; and

performing a second operation on the data values moved to the selected row of the second subarray by execution of a second set of instructions, wherein the second set of instructions is executed by a second subarray controller for the second subarray.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

storing the first set of instructions in the first subarray controller, wherein the first subarray controller is coupled to the first subarray; and

storing the second set of instructions in the second subarray controller, wherein the second subarray controller is coupled to the second subarray.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises a controller:

directing performance of the first operation with respect to data stored in the first subarray by execution of the first set of instructions; and

directing performance of the second operation with respect to data stored in the second subarray by execution of the second set of instructions.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

coupling the first sense amplifier stripe for the first subarray via a shared I/O line to the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray; and

moving data values from the particular row in the first subarray, upon which the first operation has been performed, via the shared I/O line to the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray using the coupled first sense amplifier stripe.

27. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

coupling only one of a plurality of columns at a time in the first subarray to each shared I/O line using a coupled first sensing component stripe.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises a controller:

coupling to the subarray controllers for the first and second subarrays; and

providing the first set of instructions to the subarray controller for the first subarray to direct performance of the first operation by the first sensing component stripe; and

providing the second set of instructions to the subarray controller for the second subarray to direct performance of the second operation by a second sensing component stripe.

29. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

systolically moving the data values, in response to a command, between sequential subarrays in a bank of memory cells using a DRAM protocol and DRAM logical and electrical interfaces.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises a controller:

selecting a first row of memory cells in the first subarray for the first sensing component stripe to sense data stored therein;

coupling a shared I/O line to the first sensing component stripe;

coupling the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray to the shared I/O line via a second sensing component stripe; and

moving the data in parallel from the first sensing component stripe to the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray via the shared I/O line.

31. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

storing data values, upon which the first operation has been performed, in the first sensing component stripe; and

storing the moved data values in the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray.

32. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

performing substantially simultaneously each operation of a sequence of operations by execution of a first set of instructions by a first subarray controller coupled to the first subarray and by execution of a second set of instructions by the second subarray controller coupled to the second subarray; and

wherein the sequence of operations is performed substantially simultaneously after data is present for processing in the particular row in the first subarray and the selected row of memory cells in the second subarray.

33. The method of claim 23, wherein the method further comprises:

performing the first operation and performing the second operation, wherein the first operation is different than the second operation.