Radian Memory Systems, Inc.

Richard M Mathews

Andrey V Kuzmin

Mike Jadon

This disclosure provides for host-controller cooperation in managing NAND flash memory. The controller maintains information for each erase unit which tracks memory usage. This information assists the host in making decisions about specific operations, for example, initiating garbage collection, space reclamation, wear leveling or other operations. For example, metadata can be provided to the host identifying whether each page of an erase unit has been released, and the host can specifically then command each of consolidation and erase using direct addressing. By redefining host-controller responsibilities in this manner, much of the overhead association with FTL functions can be substantially removed from the memory controller, with the host directly specifying physical addresses. This reduces performance unpredictability and overhead, thereby facilitating integration of solid state drives (SSDs) with other forms of storage. The disclosed techniques are especially useful for direct-attached and/or network-attached storage.

Nonvolatile memory controller

Cooperative storage device for managing logical subdivisions

Flash memory system with address-based subdivision selection by host and metadata management in storage drive

Nonvolatile memory controller host-issued address delimited erasure and memory controller remapping of host-address space for bad blocks

Memory controller for nonvolatile memory that tracks data write age and fulfills maintenance requests targeted to host-selected memory space subset

Memory controller for nonvolatile memory with targeted erase from host and write destination selection based on wear

Nonvolatile memory controller with data relocation and host-triggered erase

Nonvolatile memory controller with host targeted erase and data copying based upon wear

Flash memory drive that supports export of erasable segments

Flash memory controller which assigns address and sends assigned address to host in connection with data write requests for use in issuing later read requests for the data

Nonvolatile memory controller that supports host selected data movement based upon metadata generated by the nonvolatile memory controller

Flash memory controller to perform delegated move to host-specified destination

Nonvolatile memory controller that defers maintenance to host-commanded window

Memory controller that provides addresses to host for memory location matching state tracked by memory controller

Cooperative flash memory control

Growing community of inventors

Porter Ranch, CA, United States of America

Richard M Mathews