Storage device for interfacing with host and method of operating the host and the storage device

• US 10,599,591 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2018
• Issued: 03/24/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Lee, Young-Min, Seo, Sung-Ho, Oh, Hwa-Seok, Yoo, Kyung-Phil, Jang, Seong-Yong
• Primary Examiner(s): Shin, Christopher B
• Application Number:
  US15/961,920
• Publication Number:
  US 20190034364A1
• Time in Patent Office: 699 Days
• Field of Search: 710105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1642 with request queuing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1673 using buffers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/42 Bus transfer protocol, e.g. handshake; Synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/16 Memory access
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0634 by changing the state or mode of one or more devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]

Abstract

A method of operating a storage device includes receiving, from a host, a first packet containing a buffer address indicating a location of a data buffer selected from among a plurality of data buffers in the host, parsing the buffer address from the first packet, and transmitting a second packet containing the buffer address to the host in response to the first packet.

Claims

1. A method of operating a storage device, the method comprising:

receiving at the storage device a first packet from a host, the first packet containing a buffer address indicating a location of a data buffer selected from among a plurality of data buffers in the host;

parsing at the storage device the buffer address from the first packet; and

transmitting a second packet containing the buffer address from the storage device to the host in response to the first packet,

wherein the first packet corresponds to a data write request, the second packet is a packet for requesting the host to transmit write data, and the buffer address indicates the location of the data buffer in which the write data has been stored.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a command parsed from the first packet in a command queue and storing the buffer address corresponding to the command in an address queue, wherein

the storage device comprises the command queue and the address queue.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

reading the buffer address from the address queue, wherein

the buffer address read from the address queue is contained in the second packet.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a type of the second packet, wherein

in response to determining that the second packet is a packet for requesting access to at least one data buffer among the plurality of data buffers, the buffer address is selectively provided in the second packet.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage device is configured to communicate with the host according to a universal flash storage (UFS) interface and each of the first and second packets is a UFS protocol information unit (UPIU).

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first packet is a command UPIU corresponding to a data write or read request and the second packet is a data_in UPIU or a ready-to-transfer (RTT) UPIU.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first and second packets comprises a header region having a predetermined size and an extra header region in which the buffer address is recorded.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a third packet not including a buffer address, wherein

a sum of sizes of the header region and the extra header region comprised in each of the first and second packets is greater than a size of a header region of the third packet.

4. A method of operating a storage device, the method comprising:

receiving at the storage device a first packet from a host, the first packet containing a buffer address indicating a location of a data buffer selected from among a plurality of data buffers in the host;

parsing at the storage device the buffer address from the first packet; and

transmitting a second packet containing the buffer address from the storage device to the host in response to the first packet,

wherein the first packet corresponds to a data read request, the second packet contains read data from the storage device, and the buffer address indicates the location of the data buffer in which the read data is to be stored.

10. A method of operating a host, the method comprising:

receiving at the host a first packet from a storage device, the first packet containing a first buffer address indicating a location of a data buffer selected from among a plurality of data buffers in the host;

parsing at the host the first buffer address from the first packet; and

accessing at the host data in a data buffer at a location indicated by the first buffer address which has been parsed,

wherein the host is configured to communicate with the storage device according to a universal flash storage (UFS) interface and the first packet is a UFS protocol information unit (UPIU).

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

transmitting a second packet to the storage device, the second packet containing write data which has been stored in the data buffer at the location indicated by the first buffer address, wherein

the first packet is a packet for requesting transfer of the write data.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

storing read data in the data buffer at the location indicated by the first buffer address, wherein

the first packet contains the read data from the storage device.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

checking, in a first region of a host memory within the host, a transfer request descriptor comprising information about a second packet;

detecting, in a second region of the host memory, a second buffer address indicating a location of a data buffer to be accessed, according to a result of the checking of the transfer request descriptor; and

transmitting the second packet containing the second buffer address to the storage device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the first packet is received from the storage device in response to the second packet and the first buffer address is generated using the second buffer address in the storage device.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the accessing of the data in the data buffer is performed without detecting in the second region of the host memory.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

generating a second packet comprising write data which has been accessed in the data buffer at the location indicated by the first buffer address; and

transmitting the second packet to the storage device,

wherein the first packet is a ready-to-transfer (RTT) UPIU.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the first packet is a data_in UPIU comprising read data and the accessing of the data comprises storing the read data in the data buffer at the location indicated by the first buffer address.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the host comprises an application processor comprising a host controller interface and at least one intellectual property and a host memory comprising the data buffers,

the accessing of the data is performed by accessing the host memory using the host controller interface, and

the host memory is shared between the host controller interface and the at least one intellectual property.