Bitmicro Networks, Inc.

Bitmicro LLC

Bit Microsystems, Inc.

Rolando H Bruce

Ricardo H Bruce

Reyjan C Lanuza

Elmer Paule Dela Cruz

Mark Ian A Arcedera

Ryan C Chong

Mark Ian Alcid Arcedera

Jose Miguel N Lukban

Earl T Cohen

Marizonne Operio Fuentes

Richard A Cantong

Allan J Christie

The present invention relates to an apparatus, method, and/or sequence that adaptively provide the recovery of data after a power cycle sequence, wherein only minimal updates are provided for control blocks associated with the data.

Adaptive power cycle sequences for data recovery

A hybrid storage system is described having a mixture of different types of storage devices comprising rotational drives, flash devices, SDRAM, and SRAM. The rotational drives are used as the main storage, providing lowest cost per unit of storage memory. Flash memory is used as a higher-level cache for rotational drives. Methods for managing multiple levels of cache for this storage system is provided having a very fast Level 1 cache which consists of volatile memory (SRAM or SDRAM), and a non-volatile Level 2 cache using an array of flash devices. It describes a method of distributing the data across the rotational drives to make caching more efficient. It also describes efficient techniques for flushing data from L1 cache and L2 cache to the rotational drives, taking advantage of concurrent flash devices operations, concurrent rotational drive operations, and maximizing sequential access types in the rotational drives rather than random accesses which are relatively slower. Methods provided here may be extended for systems that have more than two cache levels.

Write buffering

Multi-leveled cache management in a hybrid storage system

A solution for reducing erase cycles in an electronic storage device that uses at least one erase-limited memory device is disclosed.

Electronic storage device

Reducing erase cycles in an electronic storage device that uses at least one erase-limited memory device

A method for recovering data in a storage device is provided in which information related to a first data structure is defined with a plurality of copies of a second data structure and the information related to the first data structure is rebuilt using the plurality of copies of the second data structure upon corruption thereof.

Method and apparatus for data recovery

An apparatus for and method of memory operation having a memory, a cache containing a plurality of entries with a plurality of the entries to be written to memory, a detector for detecting in the cache the plurality of entries to be written to memory, and a processor for erasing a first portion of the memory to accommodate the plurality of entries to be written to memory and writing to the first portion of the memory the plurality of entries to be written to memory wherein an erase operation is followed by a plurality of sequential write operations.

Parallel erase operations in memory systems

A flash-memory system provides solid-state mass storage as a replacement to a hard disk. A unified re-map table in a RAM is used to arbitrarily re-map all logical addresses from a host system to physical addresses of flash-memory devices. Each entry in the unified re-map table contains a physical block address (PBA) of the flash memory allocated to the logical address, and a cache valid bit and a cache index. When the cache valid bit is set, the data is read or written to a line in the cache pointed to by the cache index. A separate cache tag RAM is not needed. When the cache valid bit is cleared, the data is read from the flash memory block pointed to by the PBA. Two write count values are stored with the PBA in the table entry. A total-write count indicates a total number of writes to the flash block since manufacture. An incremental-write count indicates the number of writes since the last wear-leveling operation that moved the block. Wear-leveling is performed on a block being written when both total and incremental counts exceed system-wide total and incremental thresholds. The incremental-write count is cleared after a block is wear-leveled, but the total-write count is never cleared. The incremental-write count prevents moving a block again immediately after wear-leveling. The thresholds are adjusted as the system ages to provide even wear.

Unified re-map and cache-index table with dual write-counters for

A flash-memory system adds system-overhead bytes to each page of data stored in flash memory chips. The overhead bytes store system information such as address pointers for bad-block replacement and write counters used for wear-leveling. The overhead bytes also contain an error-correction (ECC) code when stored in the flash-memory chips. A DRAM cache stores the pages of data as enlarged pages with the overhead bytes, even though the enlarged pages are not aligned to a power of 2. When an enlarged page is read out of a flash-memory chip, its ECC code is immediately checked and the ECC code in the overhead bytes is replaced with a syndrome code and stored in the DRAM cache. A local processor for the flash-memory system then reads the syndrome code in the overhead bytes and repairs any error using repair information in the syndrome. The overhead bytes are stripped off when pages are transferred from the DRAM cache to a host. The host can be notified early by an intermediate interrupt after a programmable number of pages have been read. This improves performance since the host does not have to wait for an entire block of pages to be read.

Growing community of inventors

South San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Rolando H Bruce