Non-volatile solid-state storage system supporting high bandwidth and random access

• US 9,164,554 B2
• Filed: 04/11/2011
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Enterprise IP LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Bruening, Ulrich, Jordan, Richard, Koster, Michael J., Dinker, Darpan
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Titus
• Application Number:
  US13/084,485
• Publication Number:
  US 20120011302A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,653 Days
• Field of Search: 710/62
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/185 Mounting of expansion boards
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/102 External programming circuits, e.g. EPROM programmers; In-circuit programming or reprogramming; EPROM emulators

Abstract

Approaches for a non-volatile, solid-state storage system that is capable of supporting high bandwidth and/or random read/write access. The storage system may include a chassis having a bus slot and a disk bay, a master card mounted in the bus slot, and a flash memory card stacked in the disk bay and cabled to the master card. The master card enables one or more flash memory cards to be communicatively coupled to a single PCI Express bus. The master card may split a multi-lane PCI Express bus into a plurality of lanes, where one or more of the flash memory cards communicate over each of the plurality of lanes. Alternately, the master card may includes active circuitry for processing, switching, routing, reformatting, and/or converting the PCI Express bus into one or more busses for a plurality of flash memory cards. The stacked flash memory card is not in an enclosure.

Claims

1. A non-volatile, solid-state storage system, comprising:

a plurality of flash memory cards, each flash memory card having flash memory devices mounted thereon, wherein the plurality of flash memory cards are arranged in a stack;

a master card, configured to be mounted in a bus slot on a motherboard, wherein the master card enables the plurality of flash memory cards to each communicate over a single bus corresponding to the bus slot, and wherein the master card splits the single bus into a plurality of lanes to enable the plurality of flash memory cards to each communicate over a respective lane of the plurality of lanes; and

a cable coupling the master card to the plurality of flash memory cards arranged in the stack;

wherein the plurality of flash memory cards arranged in the stack includes;

a first flash memory card electrically coupled to the master card via the cable to communicatively couple the first flash memory card to the single bus; and

a second flash memory card, daisy chained to and distinct from the first flash memory card, wherein the second flash memory card is (a) directly electrically coupled to the first flash memory card, and (b) indirectly communicatively coupled to the master card via the first flash memory card.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the bus slot is a PCI Express bus slot.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the bus slot is a HyperTransport (HT) bus slot.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of flash memory cards arranged in the stack includes a third flash memory card that is (a) coupled to the first flash memory card and (b) not cabled to the master card, wherein the third flash memory card is indirectly communicatively coupled to the master card via the first flash memory card.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a third flash memory card that is (a) directly electrically coupled to the second flash memory card and (b) indirectly communicatively coupled to the master card via the first flash memory card and the second flash memory card.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a battery back-up.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the battery back-up is coupled to the first and second flash memory cards.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein:

the system is included in a rack-mounted computer system; and

the battery back-up is on a back-up board mounted within a flash caddy installed in a disk bay of the rack-mounted computer system, the battery back-up providing back-up power to two or more flash memory cards of the plurality of flash memory cards mounted within the flash caddy, the flash caddy for receiving the two or more flash memory cards of the plurality of flash memory cards.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is included in a rack-mounted computer system and further comprises:

a flash caddy, installed in a disk bay of the rack-mounted computer system, for receiving two or more flash memory cards of the plurality of flash memory cards in a stacked arrangement, the flash caddy enabled to separately receive at least the first flash memory card and the second flash memory card.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the flash caddy includes two or more sets of card guides to physically support two or more flash memory cards of the plurality of flash memory cards within the flash caddy, wherein a first set of card guides of the two or more sets of card guides is shaped to receive an edge of the first flash memory card and a second set of card guides of the two or more sets of card guides is shaped to receive an edge of the second flash memory card.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

an inter-board interconnect on the first flash memory card for directly electrically coupling to the second flash memory card in the flash caddy.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the inter-board interconnect forms a daisy chain connection between the first flash memory card and the second flash memory card.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the master card is an active master card, wherein the active master card includes active circuitry for one or more of:

processing, switching, routing, reformatting, and converting the single bus into the plurality of lanes to enable the plurality of flash memory cards to each communicate over a respective lane of the plurality of lanes.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of flash memory cards are arranged in the stack in a disk bay, and the first and second flash memory cards are interconnected within the disk bay using one of a board-to-board interconnect and a backplane interconnect.

14. An apparatus comprising:

a first flash memory card for storing information, wherein the first flash memory card has flash memory devices mounted thereon and includes;

a first interface for electrically coupling the first flash memory card via a cable to a master card mounted in a bus slot on a motherboard so as to communicatively couple the first flash memory card to a single bus corresponding to the bus slot, and wherein the master card splits the single bus into a plurality of lanes to enable the plurality of flash memory cards to each communicate over a respective lane of the plurality of lanes; and

a second interface for directly electrically coupling the first flash memory card to a second flash memory card that has flash memory devices mounted thereon, and is daisy chained to and distinct from the first flash memory card so as to indirectly communicatively couple the second flash memory card to the master card, wherein the first and second flash memory cards are two of a plurality of flash memory cards that are arranged in a stack.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the master card enables a plurality of flash memory cards, at least including the first flash memory and the second flash memory card, to each communicate over the single bus.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the bus slot is a PCI Express bus slot.