CONTROLLER AND NON-VOLATILE SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY DEVICE

• US 20110038212A1
• Filed: 03/02/2010
• Published: 02/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Toshiba Memory Corporation (Kioxia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Uchikawa, Hironori, Sakurada, Kenji
• Granted Patent: US 8,149,623 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 365/185.18
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 11/5642 Sensing or reading circuits; Data output circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/34 Determination of programming status, e.g. threshold voltage, overprogramming or underprogramming, retention

Abstract

A controller includes a generation unit configured to aggregate comparison results between second threshold voltage levels held in the memory cells and predetermined third threshold voltage levels, and generate a histogram of the second threshold voltage levels, an estimation unit configured to estimate statistical parameter of a distribution of the second threshold voltage levels with respect to a first threshold voltage level according to writing data, based on the histogram, and a determination unit configured to determine a fifth threshold voltage level defining a boundary of a fourth threshold voltage level indicating a read result of the memory cells from the third threshold voltage levels based on the statistical parameter in such a manner that mutual information amount between the first threshold voltage level and the fourth threshold voltage level becomes maximum.

Claims

1. A controller comprising:

a program interface configured to set a first threshold voltage level according to writing data in memory cells;

a generation unit configured to aggregate comparison results between second threshold voltage levels held in the memory cells and predetermined third threshold voltage levels, and generate a histogram of the second threshold voltage levels;

an estimation unit configured to estimate statistical parameter of a distribution of the second threshold voltage levels with respect to the first threshold voltage level based on the histogram;

a determination unit configured to determine a fifth threshold voltage level defining a boundary of a fourth threshold voltage level indicating a read result of the memory cells from the third threshold voltage levels based on the statistical parameter in such a manner that mutual information amount between the first threshold voltage level and the fourth threshold voltage level becomes maximum; and

a read interface configured to cause each of the memory cells to compare the second threshold voltage level with the fifth threshold voltage level, and obtain the fourth threshold voltage level according to a comparison result.

2. The controller according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit performs an information bottleneck method to calculate a conditional probability distribution of the fourth threshold voltage level on the condition of the second threshold voltage levels, and determines the fifth threshold voltage level from the third threshold voltage levels based on the conditional probability distribution.

3. The controller according to claim 2, wherein the determination unit sets different initial values to calculate the conditional probability distributions to perform the information bottleneck method, and determines the fifth threshold voltage level from the third threshold voltage levels based on the conditional probability distribution on which the mutual information amount becomes maximum.

4. The controller according to claim 1, wherein the generation unit aggregates comparison results between the second threshold voltage levels and a part of the third threshold voltage levels to generate a part of the histogram, and duplicates the part of the histogram to interpolatively generate a residual histogram.

5. A non-volatile semiconductor memory device, comprising:

a NAND memory which includes memory cells;

a program interface configured to set a first threshold voltage level according to writing data in the memory cells;

a generation unit configured to aggregate comparison results between second threshold voltage levels held in the memory cells and predetermined third threshold voltage levels, and generate a histogram of the second threshold voltage levels;

an estimation unit configured to estimate statistical parameter of a distribution of the second threshold voltage levels with respect to the first threshold voltage level based on the histogram;

a determination unit configured to determine a fifth threshold voltage level defining a boundary of a fourth threshold voltage level indicating a read result of the memory cells from the third threshold voltage levels based on the statistical parameter in such a manner that mutual information amount between the first threshold voltage level and the fourth threshold voltage level becomes maximum; and

a read interface configured to cause each of the memory cells to compare the second threshold voltage level with the fifth threshold voltage level, and obtain the fourth threshold voltage level according to a comparison result.

6. The device according to claim 5, wherein the determination unit performs an information bottleneck method to calculate a conditional probability distribution of the fourth threshold voltage level on the condition of the second threshold voltage levels, and determines the fifth threshold voltage level from the third threshold voltage levels based on the conditional probability distribution.

7. The device according to claim 6, wherein the determination unit sets different initial values to calculate the conditional probability distributions to perform the information bottleneck method, and determines the fifth threshold voltage level from the third threshold voltage levels based on the conditional probability distribution on which the mutual information amount becomes maximum.

8. The device according to claim 5, wherein the generation unit aggregates comparison results between the second threshold voltage levels and a part of the third threshold voltage levels to generate a part of the histogram, and duplicates the part of the histogram to interpolatively generate a residual histogram.