Silicon Motion, Inc.

Chia-Chi Liang

Jie-Hao Lee

Chien-Cheng Lin

Chang-Chieh Huang

Tsu-Han Lu

Hsiao-Chang Yen

Cheng-Yu Tsai

Hsuan-Ping Lin

Meng-Hua Yang

A method for reading data from a flash memory is provided. The method comprises: determining whether a host device is requesting a sequential read access to the flash memory; prior to receiving a first host read command issued by the host device, performing a read-ahead operation to read data from the flash memory according to a read-ahead start logical block address (LBA) if the host device is requesting the sequential read access to the flash memory; and storing the data that is read through the read-ahead operation in a read-ahead buffer; and in response to receiving a first host read command issued by the host device, sending a portion or all of data that is read through the read-ahead operation to the host device if a start LBA of the first host read command corresponds to one of start LBAs of data that is stored in the read-ahead buffer.

Method for reading data from flash memory and related memory controller and storage system thereof

A method of managing a garbage collection (GC) operation on a flash memory includes: dividing a GC operation into a plurality of partial GC operations; determining a default partial GC operation time period for each partial GC operation; determining a partial GC intensity according to at least a basic adjustment factor and an amplification factor; determining the basic adjustment factor according to a type of one or more source blocks corresponding to the GC operation; determining the amplification factor according to a percentage of invalid pages in the one or more source blocks corresponding to the GC operation; and performing the plurality of partial GC operations according to the partial GC intensity and the default partial GC operation time period.

Method of managing garbage collection operation in flash memory based on types of source blocks and related memory controller and storage system

A method for accessing a flash memory module includes: selecting a block in the flash memory module; selecting a specific encoding/decoding setting from a plurality of sets of encoding/decoding settings at least according to an erase count of the block, wherein the plurality of sets of encoding/decoding settings include different error correction code (ECC) lengths, respectively; utilizing the specific encoding/decoding setting to encode a data to generate an encoded data; and writing the encoded data into the block.

Method for accessing flash memory module, flash memory controller, and memory device

A method for use in a flash memory to handle host write commands includes: performing a dummy pattern detection while programing data into a specific section of a first block or a first super block of the flash memory; setting a dummy pattern indicator if all the data that is programmed to the specific section of the first block or the first super block of the flash memory corresponds to a predetermined dummy pattern; and in response to host write commands, modifying a host-to-flash (H2F) address mapping table regarding data that is requested by the host write commands to be programmed to a second block or a second super block of the flash memory without programming the data into the second super block or the second block to complete the host write commands if the dummy pattern indicator is set.

Method of handling host write commands requesting to write dummy pattern on flash memory and related memory controller and storage system

A method for accessing a flash memory module includes: determining a type of data to be written into the flash memory module; selecting a specific encoding/decoding setting from a plurality of sets of encoding/decoding settings at least according to the type of data, wherein the plurality of sets of encoding/decoding settings correspond to different data lengths, respectively; utilizing the specific encoding/decoding setting to encode the data to generate encoded data; and writing the encoded data into a block of the flash memory module.

The present invention provides a control method of a flash memory controller, wherein the flash memory controller is configured to access a flash memory module, the flash memory module includes a plurality of planes, and each plane includes a plurality of blocks; and the control method includes the steps of: after the flash memory controller is powered on, reading a first code bank from a specific block of the plurality of blocks; storing the first code bank into a buffer memory; executing the first code bank to manage the flash memory module; when the flash memory controller starts a code bank swapping operation, trying to read a second code bank from a super block; if the second code bank is read successfully, storing the second code bank into the buffer memory to replace the first code bank; and executing the second code bank to manage the flash memory module.

Control method of flash memory controller and associated flash memory controller and electronic device

A method for performing access management in a memory device, the associated memory device and the controller thereof, and the associated electronic device are provided. The method may include: receiving a host command and a logical address from a host device; performing a checking operation to obtain a checking result, for determining whether to load a logical-to-physical (L2P) table from the NV memory to a random access memory (RAM) of the memory device; reading the target data and associated metadata from the NV memory, wherein a latest version of the L2P table is available in the RAM when reading the target data from the NV memory is performed; and checking whether a recorded logical address within the metadata and the logical address received from the host device are equivalent to each other, to control whether to send the target data to the host device.

Method for performing access management in a memory device, associated memory device and controller thereof, and associated electronic device

A data storage device includes a memory controller and a memory device. The memory controller includes multiple memory blocks, and each memory block includes multiple pages. The memory controller is coupled to the memory device and configured to access the memory device. In an initialization procedure of the data storage device, the memory controller is configured to determine whether a sudden power-off has occurred during a first write operation to write data to a first memory block, and when a sudden power-off is determined to have occurred during the first write operation, the memory controller is configured to select a second memory block that is and write data to the second memory block in a second write operation.

Data processing method for improving utilization rate and program time after sudden power off event and associated data storage device

A data storage device includes a memory device and a memory controller. The memory controller is coupled to the memory device and configured to access the memory device and establish a physical to logical address mapping table and a logical address section table. The logical address section table records statuses of a plurality of logical address sections. Each status is utilized to indicate whether the physical to logical address mapping table records any logical address that belongs to the corresponding logical address section. The logical address section table includes a plurality of section bits in a plurality of dimensions. When the memory controller receives a write command to write data of a first predetermined logical address, the memory controller determines the section bit of each dimension corresponding to the first predetermined logical address, and accordingly sets a corresponding digital value for each section bit.

Data storage devices and data processing methods

The data storage device included a flash memory, divided into a plurality of blocks with each block comprising a plurality of physical pages, and a control unit, coupling the flash memory to a host and comprising a microcontroller and a random access memory. The microcontroller maintains a plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables and a link table on the flash memory to record mapping information between the host and the flash memory and records a link table indicator on the flash memory to indicate a position of the link table. The link table indicates positions of the plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables, and each entry in the link table corresponds to one logical-to-physical address mapping table. Further, the microcontroller erases user of logical addresses corresponding to N logical-to-physical address mapping tables.

Data storage device and flash memory control method

A data storage device with flash memory and a flash memory control method are disclosed, in which the flash memory includes multi-level cells (MLCs) and single-level cells (SLCs). A microcontroller is configured to use the random access memory to cache data issued from the host before writing the data into the flash memory. The microcontroller is further configured to allocate the blocks of the flash memory to provide a first run-time write block containing multi-level cells and a second run-time write block containing single-level cells. Under control of the microcontroller, each physical page of data uploaded from the random access memory to the first run-time write block contains sequential data, and random data cached in the random access memory to form one physical page is written into the second run-time write block.

A data storage device and a flash memory control method with high erasing efficiency are disclosed. A microcontroller is configured to maintain a plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables and a link table on a flash memory to record mapping information between a host and the flash memory. The link table indicates positions of the plurality of logical-to-physical address mapping tables, and each entry in the link table corresponds to one logical-to-physical address mapping table. When erasing user data of logical addresses corresponding to N logical-to-physical address mapping tables, the microcontroller is configured to invalidate N entries corresponding to the N logical-to-physical address mapping tables in the link table, where N is an integer.

A data storage device and a flash memory control method with a power recovery design. A microcontroller is configured to allocate a flash memory to provide a first block from the blocks to work as a run-time write block for reception of write data. During a power recovery process due to an unexpected power-off event that interrupted write operations on the first block, the microcontroller is configured to allocate the flash memory to provide a second block from the blocks for complete data recovery of the first block and to replace the first block as the run-time write block.

A data storage device with flash memory and a flash memory control method are disclosed, in which the flash memory includes multi-level cells (MLCs) and single-level cells (SLCs). A microcontroller is configured to establish a first physical-to-logical address mapping table (FH table) in a random access memory (RAM) for a first run-time write block containing MLCs. The microcontroller is further configured to establish a second FH table in the RAM for a second run-time write block containing SLCs. When data that was previously stored in the first run-time write block with un-uploaded mapping information in the first FH table is updated into the second run-time write block, the microcontroller is configured to update a logical-to-physical address mapping table (HF table) in accordance with the first FH table. The HF table is provided within the flash memory.

Growing community of inventors

Taichung, Taiwan

Chia-Chi Liang