Seagate Technology Incorporated

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Exponential Technology, Inc.

Lsi Corporation

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Conexant Systems, Inc.

Sandisk Enterprise IP LLC

Bit Microsystems, Inc.

Schooner Information Technology, Inc.

Other

S3 Incorporated, Inc.

Seagate Technologies, Inc.

Eye-Fi, Inc.

Earl T Cohen

Erich Franz Haratsch

Timothy Lawrence Canepa

Yunxiang Wu

Abdelhakim Alhussien

Leonid Baryudin

Thomas M McWilliams

Zhengang Chen

James S Blomgren

Alex G Tang

Christopher J Kappler

Jeremy Isaac Nathaniel Werner

Jeremy Werner

Robert C Olsen

Anna Charny

Hao Zhong

Donald Edward Steiss

John Joseph Williams, Jr

Yu Cai

Ning Chen

John Andrew Fingerhut

James Alexander Markevitch

Jay C Pattin

Christopher Brewer

Brian Walter O'Krafka

Yuanlong Wang

Darpan Dinker

Ricardo H Bruce

Ivana Djurdjevic

Rolando H Bruce

Brian R Baird

David E Richter

Michael W Parkin

Liang T Chen

Derek E Pappas

Daniel Fu

Jeffrey B Rubin

Robert Quinn

James M Bodwin

Jeffrey M Broughton

Ulrich Bruening

Radoslav Danilak

Yingquan Wu

Sundararajan Sankaranarayanan

Ashley N Saulsbury

Gordon James Coleman

Doron Shoham

Yan Li

Luca Bert

Garry Paul Epps

David R Emberson

Eyal Oren

Alexander Hubris

Andrew David Eckhardt

Jonathan Rosen

Necdet Uzun

Eugene Feinberg

William Kwei-Cheung Lam

Ihao Chen

Darryl Ouye

Oyekunle A Olukotun

Xiaofan Wei

Zong Yu

Russell W Tilleman

James B Burr

Mark Ish

Elyar Eldarovich Gasanov

Flavio Giovanni Bonomi

Anatoli Aleksandrovich Bolotov

Horia Cristian Simionescu

Mikhail I Grinchuk

Jackson L Ellis

Stephen D Hanna

Pavel Anatolyevich Panteleev

William Norman Eatherton

Yue Li

Sandeep Bajaj

Doron Oz

David S Allison

Ankur Narang

Sha Ma

Srinivasa Rao Malladi

Parag Ranjan Maharana

Michael John Koster

Tony Lee Werner

Yuval Koren

Kent Wayne Wendorf

Abdel-Hakim S Alhussien

Nyles I Nettleton

Berend Ozceri

AbdelHakim S Alhussien

Michael S Ball

Cheryl Senter Brashears

Farbod Michael Raam

James Fraser Testa

Johannes Markus Hoerler

Sumit Puri

Sivakumar Sambandan

Mark vonGnechten

Adrian Evans

A method includes the steps of storing non-header data into a plurality of logical pages ('Lpages') of a non-volatile memory ('NVM'), each Lpage including a number of read units, wherein at least one of the read units is a spanning read unit that spans Lpage boundaries and includes a first byte of at least one Lpage starting in the read unit, storing, in each of the at least one spanning read units that include the first byte of the at least one Lpage starting in the read unit, an Lpage identification header per each of the at least one Lpages starting in the spanning read unit, each Lpage identification header identifying a location of the first byte of the respective Lpage starting within the respective spanning read unit, and locating an Lpage of data stored in the NVM by referring to an entry stored a flash memory controller map table.

Method of writing and reading data in an NVM using Lpage identification headers

Higher-level redundancy information computation enables a Solid-State Disk (SSD) controller to provide higher-level redundancy capabilities to maintain reliable operation in a context of failures of non-volatile (e.g. flash) memory elements during operation of an SSD implemented in part by the controller. For example, a first computation is an XOR, and a second computation is a weighted-sum. Various amounts of storage are dedicated to storing the higher-level redundancy information, such as amounts equivalent to an integer multiple of flash die (e.g. one, two, or three entire flash die), and such as amounts equivalent to a fraction of a single flash die (e.g. one-half or one-fourth of a single flash die).

Fractional redundant array of silicon independent elements

Methods, systems and computer-readable storage media for requesting programming of N portions of a plurality of non-volatile memories (NVMs) in accordance with received data. Redundancy information sufficient to recover from failures of M of the N portions for which programming was requested is updated in response to the requesting programming. Upon identifying one to M of the N portions that have failed the programming, re-programming of the one to M of the N portions is requested in accordance with data calculated based at least in part on the redundancy information.

Non-volatile memory program failure recovery via redundant arrays

Methods, systems, and computer-readable storage media for a storage device to, upon receiving a command from a computing host, determine whether or not the command includes location information targeting a particular portion of a NVM of the storage device, the location information having been retrieved by the computing host from a shadow map and included with the command. Upon determining that the command includes location information, the command is processed by the storage device using the included location information. Upon determining that the command does not include location information, the storage device determines the particular portion of the NVM targeted by the command based on a map stored in a memory of the storage device before processing the command.

I/O device and computing host interoperation

Methods for determining, by a storage controller, a read unit address and encoded length information of one of the plurality of read units of a non-volatile memory (NVM) based at least in part on a page address of a particular one of a plurality of pages in a storage space address. The encoded length information may be decoded. The storage controller may determine a span specifying an integer number of the read units and a length in units having a finer granularity than the read units based at least in part on the page address. The storage controller may read data associated with the particular page based at least in part on the read unit address and the span. The storage controller may update space usage information of the NVM based at least in part on the length.

Storage system with application to NVM address, span, and length

Methods, systems and computer-readable storage media for determining a new optimal read threshold voltage associated with a group of pages of non-volatile memory. It is determined whether the current optimal read threshold voltage associated with the group of pages is out of tolerance based at least in part on a retention drift history associated with the group of pages. Upon determining that the current optimal read threshold voltage is out of tolerance, reference cells associated with the group of pages are written with a pattern having a known statistical distribution of ones and zeroes. The new optimal read threshold voltage associated with the group of pages is determined by reading the reference cells, and the retention drift history associated with the group of pages is updated with the new optimal read threshold voltage and an indication of a new reference cell generation.

Retention-drift-history-based non-volatile memory read threshold optimization

A data processing system includes a likelihood input operable to receive encoded data, a decoder operable to apply a decoding algorithm to likelihood values for the received encoded data and to yield a decoded output, and a decoder input initialization circuit operable to generate new decoder input values based in part on the likelihood values for the received encoded data after the likelihood values for the received encoded data have failed to converge in the decoder.

Refresh, run, aggregate decoder recovery

Methods, systems and computer-readable storage media for receiving, via an external interface of a storage device, a command from a computing host, the command including at least one non-standard command modifier, executing the command according to a particular non-standard command modifier, storing an indication of the particular non-standard command modifier in an entry of a map associated with a logical block address of the command, and storing a shadow copy of the map in a memory of the computing host.

Methods, systems and computer-readable storage media for programming, by a storage controller, particular data stored in an allocated buffer to a particular one of a plurality of non-volatile memories (NVMs). Redundancy information may be updated sufficient to recover from failures of the plurality of NVMs. The allocated buffer may be freed prior to and independent of the particular NVM completing the programming. The particular data may continue to be programmed independent of freeing the allocated buffer. The continuing of the programming of the particular data may include determining whether there are any failures of the programming the particular data.

Methods, systems and computer-readable storage media for selecting a retention drift predictor scheme, reading retention drift history associated with reference cells of a plurality of groups of pages of a non-volatile memory (NVM), and predicting values for an optimal read threshold voltage of at least some of the plurality of groups of pages. The predicting of values for an optimal read threshold voltage may be based at least on the selected retention drift predictor scheme and the read retention drift history.

A method for using a variable-size flash translation layer. The method includes reading an entry in a map based on a read logical block address in a read request to obtain both a physical address of a particular page in a memory and information regarding compressed data with a variable size; converting the information to both an address in the particular page and a number of read units in the memory that contain the compressed data; and reading the compressed data from at least the particular page in the memory based on the address and the number of read units.

Variable-size flash translation layer

A Solid-State Disk (SSD) controller uses LDPC decoding to enable flash memory accesses with improved latency and/or error correction capabilities. With SLC flash memory having a BER less than a predetermined value, the SSD controller uses a 1-bit read (single read) hard-decision LDPC decoder to access the flash memory. If the hard-decision LDPC decoder detects an uncorrectable error, then the SSD controller uses a 1.5-bit read (two reads) erasure-decision LDPC decoder to access the flash memory. With flash memory having a raw BER between two other predetermined values, the SSD controller omits the use of the hard-decision LDPC decoder and uses only the erasure-decision LDPC decoder to access the flash memory. Variations of the SSD controller similarly access MLC flash memory. Some SSD controllers dynamically switch between hard-decision and erasure-based decoders based on dynamic decoder selection criteria.

LDPC Erasure Decoding for Flash Memories

The disclosure is directed to protecting data of a scalable storage system. A scalable storage system includes a plurality of nodes, each of the nodes having directly-attached storage (DAS), such as one or more hard-disk drives and/or solid-state disk drives. The nodes are coupled via an inter-node communication network, and a substantial entirety of the DAS is globally accessible by each of the nodes. The DAS is protected utilizing intra-node protection to keep data stored in the DAS reliable and globally accessible in presence of a failure within one of the nodes. The DAS is further protected utilizing inter-node protection to keep data stored in the DAS reliable and globally accessible if at least one of the nodes fails.

Scalable storage protection

Growing community of inventors

Oakland, CA, United States of America

Earl T Cohen