Memory for accessing multiple sectors of information substantially concurrently

• US 8,397,019 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2011
• Issued: 03/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
• Inventors: Estakhri, Petro, Iman, Berhanu
• Primary Examiner(s): Thai, Tuan V.
• Application Number:
  US13/323,144
• Publication Number:
  US 20120084494A1
• Time in Patent Office: 456 Days
• Field of Search: 711/100, 711/103, 711/154
• US Class Current: 711/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1068 in sector programmable memories, e.g. flash disk G06F11/1072 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0238 Memory management in non-volatile memory, e.g. resistive RAM or ferroelectric memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• 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 16/08 Address circuits; Decoders; Word-line control circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/102 External programming circuits, e.g. EPROM programmers; In-circuit programming or reprogramming; EPROM emulators
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/765 in solid state disks
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/82 for EEPROMs

Abstract

A memory storage system of an embodiment includes a non-volatile memory unit and memory control circuitry coupled to the memory unit. The memory control circuitry is configured to access multiple sectors of information substantially concurrently.

Claims

1. A non-volatile memory system, comprising:

memory control circuitry; and

a non-volatile memory unit coupled to the memory control circuitry, the non-volatile memory unit comprising a plurality of rows, each row comprising one or more row-portions, each row-portion comprising storage locations for a plurality of sectors of information, a sector of information comprising user data and overhead, the user data of a sector of information comprising even user data bytes and odd user data bytes and the overhead of a sector of information comprising even overhead bytes and odd overhead bytes;

wherein the memory control circuitry is configured to program the even user data bytes and the even overhead bytes of at least one of the plurality of sectors of information into the first row-portion and to program the odd user data bytes and the odd overhead bytes of the at least one of the plurality of sectors of information into a second row-portion;

wherein the memory control circuitry is configured to program the even user data bytes and the even overhead bytes of at least one other of the plurality of sectors of information into the first row-portion and to program the odd user data bytes and the odd overhead bytes of the at least one other of the plurality of sectors of information into the second row-portion; and

wherein the memory control circuitry is configured to write two or more sectors of information to a row concurrently.

2. The non-volatile memory system of claim 1, wherein the non-volatile memory unit is organized into sectors, a sector including storage locations for the plurality of sectors of information.

3. The non-volatile memory system of claim 1, wherein the non-volatile memory unit includes one or more flash memory chips.

4. The non-volatile memory system of claim 1, further comprising:

a first split bus coupled between the memory control circuitry and the non-volatile memory unit to transmit the even user data bytes and the even overhead bytes of the sectors of information to the first row-portion; and

a second split bus coupled between the memory control circuitry and the non-volatile memory unit to transmit the odd user data bytes and the odd overhead bytes of the sectors of information to the second row-portion.

5. The non-volatile memory system of claim 4, wherein the non-volatile memory unit comprises two memory chips, wherein the first row-portion is contained in a first memory chip of the non-volatile memory unit, and wherein the second row-portion is contained in a second memory chip of the non-volatile memory unit.

6. A memory storage device, comprising:

a memory controller coupled to a host; and

a nonvolatile memory bank coupled to the memory controller via a memory bus, the nonvolatile memory bank comprising a first non-volatile semiconductor memory unit and a second non-volatile semiconductor memory unit, the nonvolatile memory bank comprising storage blocks, each of which includes at least one memory row location having a first row-portion located in the first memory unit and a corresponding second row-portion located in the second memory unit, each of the memory row portions providing storage space for two or more of sectors of information from the host, each sector of information including a user data portion and an overhead portion, the sectors of information being organized into blocks;

wherein the memory controller is configured to access two or more sectors of information concurrently;

wherein each of the first row-portions includes a first sector field for storing data bytes of a first sector of information;

wherein each of the second row-portions includes a second sector field for storing data bytes of a second sector of information; and

wherein the memory bus comprises;

a first split bus coupled to transmit least significant data bytes of the sectors of information between the memory controller and the first memory unit; and

a second split bus coupled to transmit most significant data bytes of the sectors of information between the memory controller and the second memory unit.

7. The memory storage device of claim 6, wherein each sector is identified by a host provided logical block address (LBA) and an actual physical block address (PBA) derived from a virtual PBA, wherein each block is identified by a modified LBA derived from the host-provided LBA and the virtual PBA, wherein the storage system is configured to receive the host-provided LBA from the host for identifying a sector of information to be accessed, wherein the storage system is configured to develop the actual PBA for identifying a free location within the nonvolatile memory bank where the accessed sector of information is to be stored.

8. The memory storage device of claim 6, further comprising means for concurrently accessing the first and second sector fields of corresponding row-portions of the first and second memory units via the first and second split buses.

9. The memory storage device of claim 6, wherein each of the first and second row portions further comprises:

an error correction field for storing error correction information corresponding to a sector of information;

a field for storing an address of the respective storage block; and

a flag field for storing information indicative of a status of the respective storage block.

10. The memory storage device of claim 9, wherein the flag field is used to store block level flags comprising:

a used/free block flag indicating whether the respective block is currently being used to store a sector of information; and

a defect block flag indicating whether the respective block is defective.

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

a memory controller coupled to the host; and

the nonvolatile memory bank coupled to the memory controller via a memory bus, the nonvolatile memory bank comprising a first non-volatile semiconductor memory unit and a second non-volatile semiconductor memory unit, the nonvolatile memory bank having storage blocks each of which includes at least one memory row location having a first row-portion located in the first memory unit, and a corresponding second row-portion located in the second memory unit, each the memory row location providing storage space for two or more of the sectors of information;

wherein the memory controller is configured to access two or more sectors of information concurrently;

wherein each of the first row-portions comprises;

a first even sector field for storing even data bytes of an even sector of information, and

a first odd sector field for storing even data bytes of an odd sector of information;

wherein each of the second row-portions comprises;

a second even sector field for storing odd data bytes of the even sector of information, and

a second odd sector field for storing odd data bytes of the odd sector of information; and

wherein the memory bus comprises;

a first split bus coupled to transmit the even data bytes of the sectors of information between the memory controller and the first memory unit; and

a second split bus coupled to transmit the odd data bytes of the sectors of information between the memory controller and the second memory unit.

12. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein each of the second row-portions further includes:

a first error correction field for storing error correction information corresponding to the even sector of information;

a second error correction field for storing error correction information corresponding to the odd sector of information;

a block address field for storing the PBA that specifies an address of the corresponding block; and

a flag field for storing information indicative of the status of the corresponding block.

13. The memory storage device of claim 12, wherein each of the first row-portions further includes:

a first error correction field for storing error correction information corresponding to the even sector of information;

a second error correction field for storing error correction information corresponding to the odd sector of information;

a block address field for storing the PBA that specifies an address of the corresponding block, and

a flag field for storing information indicative of the status of the corresponding block.

14. The memory storage device of claim 13, wherein each flag field is used to store block level flags comprising:

a used/free block flag indicating whether the corresponding block is currently being used to store information; and

a defect block flag indicating whether the corresponding block is defective.

15. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein:

each of the first and second row-portions includes storage space for 512 bytes of user data plus an additional 16 bytes of storage space for overhead information; and

the first split bus and the second split bus each include 8 bit lines.

16. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein the controller includes:

means for accessing an even sector of information by concurrently accessing the first and second even sector fields of corresponding row-portions of the first and second memory units via the first and second split buses; and

means for accessing an odd sector of information by concurrently accessing the first and second odd sector fields of corresponding row-portions of the first and second memory units via the first and second split buses.

17. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein the controller includes error correction code logic for performing error coding and correction operations on the sector-organized information.

18. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein each of the corresponding sub-blocks are identified by a single PBA value.

19. The memory storage device of claim 11, wherein the non-volatile memory units are flash memory chips.

20. The memory storage device of claim 11, further comprising means for concurrently accessing the first and second sector fields of corresponding row-portions of the first and second memory units via the first and second split buses.