Micron Technology Incorporated

John Zhang

Harish Reddy Singidi

Jianmin Huang

Xiangang Luo

Ting Luo

Deping He

Kulachet Tanpairoj

Kishore Kumar Muchherla

Fernando N Gonzalez

Sampath K Ratnam

Er-Xuan Ping

Ashutosh Malshe

Michael G Miller

Jie Zhou

Disclosed in some examples are NAND devices, firmware, systems, methods, and devices that apply smart algorithms to process ECC errors by taking advantage of excess overprovisioning. In some examples, when the amount of overprovisioned blocks are above a predetermined threshold, a first ECC block error handling mode may be implemented and when the overprovisioned blocks are equal or less than the predetermined threshold, a second mode of ECC block error handling may be utilized.

Uncorrectable ECC

Devices and techniques for initiating and controlling preemptive idle time read scans in a flash based storage system are disclosed. In an example, a memory device includes a NAND memory array and a memory controller to schedule and initiate read scans among multiple locations of the memory array, with such read scans being preemptively triggered during an idle (background) state of the memory device, thus reducing host latency during read and write operations in an active (foreground) state of the memory device. In an example, the optimization technique includes scheduling a read scan operation, monitoring an active or idle state of host IO operations, and preemptively initiating the read scan operation when entering an idle state, before the read scan operation is scheduled to occur. In further examples, the read scan may preemptively occur based on time-based scheduling, frequency-based conditions, or event-driven conditions triggering the read scan.

Preemptive idle time read scans

Methods of forming thin nitride dielectric layers for semiconductor devices are provided. Additionally, methods of forming capacitor structures utilizing thin nitride dielectric layers are provided. The thin nitride layers are formed by nitridizing the surface of a doped or undoped semiconductor substrate using a remote plasma nitridization or a rapid thermal nitridization to form a first growth of silicon nitride. A self-limiting second growth of silicon nitride is formed using a remote plasma nitridization. The resulting silicon nitride layers exhibit improved dielectric and leakage characteristics.

Method of forming a silicon nitride dielectric layer

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Shanghai, China

John Zhang