Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Liam Michael Parker

Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets

Alan David Bennett

Daniel Lee Helmick

Peter Grayson

Neil Richard Darragh

Horst-Christoph Georg Hellwig

Yuval Shohet

Matias Bjorling

Michelle Martin

Yehuda Hahn

Kroum Stanimirov Stoev

Stephen Gold

Karin Inbar

Gulzar Ahmed Kathawala

David Landsman

Leena Patel

Alan Welsh Sinclair

Steven Theodore Sprouse

Jack Frayer

William S Wu

Ryan R Jones

Neil David Hutchison

Michael James

Robert George Young

Thomas Hugh Shippey

Marielle Bundukin

Matias Bjørling

Tom Hugh Shippey

Yauheni Yaromenka

Marc Acosta

Stephen T Sprouse

The present disclosure generally relates to creating and recalibrating zone groups. Rather than having a fixed zone group size, the zone group size can be dynamic where the data storage device provides a range of zone group sizes to a host device. Based upon block availability and host device commands, new zone groups may be formed of different sizes within the provided range. If there is an insufficient number of blocks available to create a zone group with a size within the provided range, the data storage device can recalibrate. The insufficient number of blocks may be due to bad blocks and/or fragmentation. To obtain more blocks, garbage collection can occur and/or the data storage device can request the host device to release some blocks. The dynamic zone group creation and recalibration ensures more efficient operation of the data storage device.

Dynamic zone group creation and recalibration balancing

The present disclosure generally relates to improving programming to data storage devices, such as solid state drives (SSDs). A first memory device has a first XOR element and a second memory device has a second XOR element. The ratio of the first XOR element to the capacity of the first memory device is substantially smaller than the ratio of the second XOR element to the capacity of the second memory device. A read verify operation to find program failures is executed on either a wordline to wordline basis, an erase block to erase block basis, or both a wordline to wordline basis and an erase block to erase block basis. Because the program failures are found and fixed prior to programming to the second memory device, the second XOR element may be decreased substantially.

TLC data programming with hybrid parity

The present disclosure generally relates to achieving an acceptable uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER) using a dual temporary data protecting approach and a small SLC cache by adding a temporary XOR protection to zone-groups rather than storing another copy of the zone within the drive. The parity data can be stored with the user data (e.g., as part of the zone-group, effectively increasing zone-group size by 1) or in a separate location, e.g., in an SLC block or another separate MLC block.

ZNS protection with small SLC cache using zone groups

Instead of having all zones open across all dies, optimizing caching of non-direct write active zones using a host append point (HAP) for maximum write bandwidth is sufficient. The controller will calculate the write rate for a jumbo device (JD). Based on the JD with lowest total write rate, the controller will assign the JD a new zone. The controller will then determine whether the write rate is either appropriate for a cache write or for a direct write. Based on the determination, the controller will write data to the new zone. If the controller direct writes to the new zone, then the controller will close the zone when the zone is full. If the controller cache writes the data to the new zone, then the controller will copy the zone to the direct write area and return the cache write zone to a zone pool. The controller will reclassify the zone if the initial classification is incorrect.

Cache writing to zones to maximize write bandwidth

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller and a media unit. The capacity of the media unit is divided into a plurality of zones. The controller is configured to make informed use of errors by update zone metadata to indicate one or more first logical block addresses were skipped and to indicate the next valid logical block address is available to store data. The controller is further configured to update zone metadata to recommend to the host device to reset one or more full zones, to recommend to the host device to transition one or more open zones to a full state, to alert the host device that one or more open zones have been transitioned to the full state, and to notify the host device of the writeable zone capacity of each of the plurality of zones.

Zoned namespaces in solid-state drives

The present disclosure generally relates to writing data to streams. A host device can instruct a data storage device to operate in implied streams mode such that the host device does not need to tell the data storage device the specific stream in which to write data. The data storage device would maintain a list of open append points of specific streams. Upon receiving a write command, the data storage device determines whether the write command is for an already open stream, and if so, write to the specific stream. If not, then the data storage device opens a new stream or write the data to an overflow stream.

Implied streams

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller comprising first random access memory (RAM1), second random access memory (RAM2), and a storage unit divided into a plurality of zones. A first command to write data to a first zone is received, first parity data for the first command is generated in the RAM1, and the data of the first command is written to the first zone. When a second command to write data to a second zone is received, the generated first parity data is copied from the RAM1 to a parking section in the storage unit, and second parity data associated with the second zone is copied from the parking section to the RAM1. The second parity data is then updated in the RAM1 with the data of the second command and copied to the parking section.

Data parking for ZNS devices

EGs may be combined with ZNSs to offer greater control of how, where and under what configurations, data is stored to various user-defined sections on a SSD. In embodiments, this exposure of control functionalities to an SSD host provides improved performance to data center and other hyperscale users and their clients. In embodiments, larger SSDs may be partitioned into groups of zones for better usage by host devices. In embodiments, the groups may comprise, for example, EGs, sets and MUs, each containing a defined number of zones. In one or more embodiments, hosts may use different EGs to access the device and thereby manage die or channel conflicts in the SSD.

Applying endurance groups to zoned namespaces

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller and a media unit divided into a plurality of zones. Data associated with one or more first commands is written to a first portion of a first zone. Upon a predetermined amount of time passing, dummy data is written to a second portion of the first zone to fill the first zone to a zone capacity. Upon receiving one or more second commands to write data, a second zone is allocated and opened, and the data associated with the one or more second commands is written to a first portion of the second zone. The data associated with the one or more first commands is then optionally re-written to a second portion of the second zone to fill the second zone to a zone capacity, and the first zone is erased.

Keeping zones open with intermediate padding

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller comprising first random access memory (RAM1), second random access memory (RAM2), and a storage unit divided into a plurality of zones. The controller restricts the host to a maximum number of zones that can be in the open and active state at a time. Open zones can be switched to the closed state, and vice versa, upon a predetermined amount of time expiring. The maximum number of open zones is based on one or more amounts of time to: generate parity data, copy the parity data from the RAM2 to the RAM1, update the parity data, switch a zone from the open and active state to the closed state, and the amount of space in a temporary RAM1 buffer.

Rate limit on the transitions of zones to open

A system and method is disclosed for managing data in a non-volatile memory. The system may include a non-volatile memory having multiple non-volatile memory sub-drives. A controller of the memory system is configured to route incoming host data to a desired sub-drive, keep data within the same sub-drive as its source during a garbage collection operation, and re-map data between sub-drives, separate from any garbage collection operation, when a sub-drive overflows its designated amount logical address space. The method may include initial data sorting of host writes into sub-drives based on any number of hot/cold sorting functions. In one implementation, the initial host write data sorting may be based on a host list of recently written blocks for each sub-drive and a second write to a logical address encompassed by the list may trigger routing the host write to a hotter sub-drive than the current sub-drive.

System and method of direct write and mapping of data in a non-volatile memory having multiple sub-drives

A data storage device includes one or more memory devices that each includes one or more superblocks and a controller coupled to the one or more memory devices. Each superblock includes a plurality of wordlines. The controller is configured to write data to a first wordline of the plurality of wordlines, write data to a second wordline of the plurality of wordlines, perform a read verify operation on the first wordline, and perform a read verify operation on the second wordline. At least one of the first wordline and the second wordline does not include an XOR parity element and one or more wordlines of the plurality of wordlines includes the XOR parity element.

QLC data programming

System and method of data writes and mapping of data for multiple sub-drives

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller and a storage unit divided into a plurality of streams. The storage unit comprises a plurality of dies, where each die comprises two planes. One erase block from each plane of a die is selected for stream formation. Each erase block comprises a plurality of wordlines. A stream comprises one or two dies dedicated to storing parity data and a plurality of dies dedicated to storing user data. The stream further comprises space devoted for controller metadata. The storage device restricts a host device to send write commands in a minimum write size to increase programming efficiency. The minimum write size equals one wordline from one erase block from each plane of each die in the stream dedicated to storing user data minus the space dedicated to metadata.

Growing community of inventors

Endinburgh, United Kingdom

Liam Michael Parker