Silicon Motion, Inc.

Shen-Ting Chiu

Kuan-Yu Ke

Lien-Yu Lee

Te-Kai Wang

Po-Lin Wu

Guan-Yao Huang

Lu-Ting Wu

Yi-Da Chen

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and an apparatus for executing host write commands. The method performed by a processing unit includes: providing a sequential-write command queue (SCQ), a random-write command queue (RCQ) and a mark queue; receiving a host write command from a host side; and pushing a record into the mark queue and pushing the host write command into the SCQ or the RCQ according to a length of the first logical address range carried in the host write command when detecting that a first logical address range carried in the host write command conflicts with a second logical address range carried in at least one sequential write command and/or a third logical address range carried in at least one random write command, where the record indicates that a conflicting sequential write command and/or a conflicting random write command needs to be processed earlier than the host write command.

Method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and apparatus for executing host write commands

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable program product and an apparatus for updating a host-to-flash address mapping (H2F) table. The method includes: allocating space in a random access memory (RAM) for a first H2F sub-table and intermediate information, which is used to update a second H2F sub-table in a flash module; updating the first H2F sub-table and the intermediate information temporarily stored in the RAM during an execution of a host write command or a host discard command; and in a table update procedure, programming the first H2F sub-table temporarily stored in the RAM into a system block in the flash module, updating the second H2F sub-table according to the intermediate information stored in the RAM, and programming updated second H2F sub-table into the system block in the flash module.

Method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and apparatus for updating host-to-flash address mapping table

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and an apparatus for executing host write commands. The method performed by a processing unit includes: providing a sequential-write command queue (SCQ), a random-write command queue (RCQ) and a mark queue; when a specific condition is met, obtaining a first logical address range carried in the conflicting sequential write command and second logical address ranges carried in the sequential write commands earlier than the conflicting sequential write command from the SCQ, and/or a third logical address range carried in the conflicting random write command and fourth logical address ranges carried in the random write commands earlier than the conflicting random write command from the RCQ according to content of the record; reading user data of the first logical address range from a first address of the RAM and user data of the second logical address ranges from second addresses of the RAM, and/or user data of the third logical address range from a third address of the RAM and user data of the fourth logical address ranges from fourth addresses of the RAM; and programming the user data of the first logical address range and the second logical address ranges, and/or the user data of the third logical address range and the fourth logical address ranges into the flash module.

A method for performing access management of a memory device in a predetermined communications architecture with aid of automatic parameter setting and associated apparatus are provided. The method includes: utilizing the memory controller to set at least one write booster static parameter of a write booster function of the memory device; utilizing the memory controller to perform device initialization corresponding to at least one initialization phase of the memory device; and after completing the device initialization corresponding to the at least one initialization phase, performing at least one adaptive flag-setting operation, for setting at least one write booster flag among a plurality of write booster flags of the write booster function, wherein the at least one write booster flag includes a first write booster flag acting as a write booster switch. The adaptive flag-setting operation includes setting the first write booster flag to enable the write booster function by default.

Method and apparatus for performing access management of memory device in predetermined communications architecture with aid of automatic parameter setting

The invention relates to a method, and an apparatus for programming data into flash memory. The method includes: reading operating settings of a virtual carrier; setting a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) engine for driving the RAID engine to complete a designated encryption or encoding operation on first data associated with the virtual carrier when the operation settings indicate that the first data associated with the virtual carrier need to go through a mid-end processing stage; and sending a programming index to a data access engine for driving the data access engine to read a programming table from the SRAM, and program the second data associated with the virtual carrier into a designated address in a flash module when the operation settings indicate that the second data associated with the virtual carrier need to go through the back-end processing stage.

Method and apparatus for programming data arranged to undergo specific stages into flash memory based on virtual carriers

The invention is related to an apparatus and a method for driving redundant array of independent disks (RAID) engine. The method, performed by a RAID controller in a RAID pre-processor, including: completing a driving operation for performing a series of physical-layer signal interactions with a RAID engine according to a driving value in the configuration register. The driving value corresponds to a command issued by a processing unit. The processing unit performs an operation irrelevant from an encoding or a decoding of a parity of a page group in parallel of the driving operation by the RAID controller in coordination with the RAID engine.

Apparatus and method for driving redundant array of independent disks (RAID) engine

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and an apparatus for data access in response to a host discard command. The method includes: allocating space in a random access memory (RAM) for an expanded discard table; receiving the host discard command from a host side; appending new entries each including one first logical address to the expanded discard table; and setting a start-address register and/or an end-address register in a performance engine for redefining an address range in the RAM that stores the expanded discard table, thereby enabling the performance engine to search the expanded discard table in the address range in the RAM for determining whether a specific logical address of user data is no longer used.

Method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and apparatus for data access in response to host discard commands

A memory controller coupled to a memory device and configured to control access operations of the memory device includes a data protection engine and a microprocessor. The data protection engine is configured to generate protection information according to data received from a host device. The microprocessor is configured to detect a status of the memory device in response to one or more write operations for writing the data to the memory device, determine whether a portion of the data has to be excluded when generating the protection information corresponding to the data according to the status and accordingly generate a determination result, and store the protection information and the determination result together in the memory device. The determination result indicates which portion of the data is utilized to generate the protection information.

Data storage device and data processing method

The invention introduces a method for executing host input-output (IO) commands, performed by a processing unit of a device side, at least including: in response to different types of host IO commands, using multiple stages of a generic framework to drive a frontend interface to interact with a host side for transmitting user data read from a storage unit to the host side, and receiving user data to be programmed into the storage unit from the host side. The frontend interface includes a register, and a data line coupled to the host side. The stages of the generic framework are used to access to the register of the frontend interface and operate the data line of the frontend interface to complete interactions with the host side.

Apparatus and method and computer program product for executing host input-output commands

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and an apparatus for programming data into flash memory. The method includes: generating a front-end parameter set, a mid-end parameter set and a back-end parameter set for each data-programming transaction; transmitting the front-end parameter set of each data-programming transaction to a routing engine, thereby enabling the routing engine to drive a host interface (I/F) to obtain from the host side; transmitting the mid-end parameter set of each data-programming transaction to an accelerator, thereby enabling the accelerator to drive the RAID engine to encrypt raw data or generate parity-page data according to multiple pages of the raw data; and transmitting the back-end parameter set of each data-programming transaction to the accelerator, thereby enabling the accelerator to drive a data access engine to program source data into a designated physical address of a flash module.

Method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and apparatus for programming data into flash memory through dedicated acceleration hardware

The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for programming data into flash memory. The method includes: obtaining, by the accelerator, an execution table indicating that data related to the first virtual carrier need to go through a mid-end and a back-end processing stages earlier than data related to other virtual carriers; driving, by the routing engine, a host interface (I/F) to obtain data associated with all cargos in the second virtual carrier, updating the second cargo flags with third cargo flags to indicate that data associated with all the cargos in the second virtual carrier are prepared in the front-end processing stage; and determining, by the accelerator, that data associated with any cargo in the first virtual carrier hasn't been prepared according to information of the first cargo flags, and disallowing the second virtual carrier to proceed to the following processing stages.

The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and an apparatus for accessing to encoding-history information. The method includes: providing a super-block formed by storage space of flash units, where the super-block includes zones, each zone includes super-page strings, and each super-page string includes pages across the flash units; and programming encoding-history information into a metadata section of a designated first page of a designated super-page string, thereby enabling a damaged page that is occurred in the designated super-page string of the designated zone to be recovered according to the encoding-history information. The encoding-history information includes a history profile and history entries. The history profile indicates which zone or zones are covered in the super-block, and a quantity of the history entries. Each history entry includes information indicating that a designated second page of the designated super-page string in a designated zone hasn't been passed through an engine to generate a parity for the designated super-page string.

Method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and apparatus for accessing to encoding-history information

The invention relates to a method, and an apparatus for programming data into flash memory. The method includes: driving, by the routing engine, a host interface (I/F) according to the front-end parameter set when determining that a front-end processing stage needs to be activated for the data-programming transaction; driving, by the accelerator, a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) engine according to the mid-end parameter set when receiving an activation message of the data-programming transaction from the routing engine and determining that a mid-end processing stage needs to be activated; and driving, by the accelerator, a data access engine according to the back-end parameter set when determining that the mid-end processing stage for the data-write transaction does not need to be activated or the mid-end processing stage for the data-write transaction has been completed, and a back-end processing stage for the data-write transaction needs to be activated.

Method and apparatus for programming data into flash memory incorporating with dedicated acceleration hardware

A memory controller coupled to a memory device and a host device and configured to control access operations of the memory device includes a buffer memory, a host interface, a microprocessor and a data protection engine. The host interface is coupled to the host device and configured to write data received from the host device into the buffer memory and issue a buffer memory write complete notification after the data has been written in the buffer memory. The microprocessor is configured to trigger a data protection operation in response to the buffer memory write complete notification. The protection engine is configured to perform the data protection operation to generate corresponding protection information according to the data written in the buffer memory. The microprocessor is configured to directly trigger the data protection operation after confirming that the data has been written in the buffer memory.

Data storage device and data processing method with overlapped performance time of different operations corresponding to the same data to improve access performance of the data storage device

A data storage device utilized for accessing boot data includes a flash memory, a controller and a RAM. The flash memory includes several blocks, and each block includes several pages. The controller is coupled to the flash memory and the RAM. The controller receives a write command from a host and determines whether the data of the write command is system data or normal data. If the data to be written is system data, the controller transmits a confirm message to the host after the system data has been completely stored on the data storage device.

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Miaoli County, Taiwan

Shen-Ting Chiu