Silicon Motion, Inc.

Phison Electronics Corporation

Tsai-Cheng Lin

Chun-Kun Lee

Chien-Fu Tseng

Yen-Chiao Lai

A method for managing a memory apparatus including a non-volatile (NV) memory element having a plurality of physical blocks includes: obtaining a first host address and first data from a first access command; obtaining a second host address and second data from a second access command; linking the first host address to a first page of the physical block and the second host address to a second page of the physical block; storing the first data and second data into the physical block; building a valid page position table and storing the valid page position table in the volatile memory; and building a global page address linking table and storing the global page address linking table in the volatile memory. The valid page position table and the global page address linking table are loaded from the volatile memory and stored to the NV memory element at predetermined time periods.

Method for managing a memory apparatus

A method for managing a memory apparatus including a plurality of physical blocks, and a volatile memory includes: obtaining a first host address and first data, and obtaining a second host address and second data; linking the first host address and second host address to a first page and second page of the physical block, and storing the first data and second data into the physical block; building a valid/invalid page count table according to a valid/invalid page count of the physical block; building a valid page position table according to the valid/invalid page count table, and storing the valid/invalid page count table in the volatile memory; and when a valid/invalid page count of the physical block indicates the physical block should be erased, using the valid page position table to move valid pages of the physical block to another physical block.

A method for managing a memory apparatus including a plurality of non-volatile (NV) memory elements includes: programming a physical block of a specific NV memory element, including: receiving a host command from a host; obtaining a host address and data from the host command; and linking the host address to a page of a physical block of the specific NV memory element and storing the data into the physical block. Before the pages of the physical block are fully programmed, a temporary local page linking address table is stored and is updated each time a linking relationship is changed. When the memory apparatus is to be shut down, the temporary local page linking address table is written to the specific NV memory element; and when the memory apparatus begins a start-up process, a global page address linking table is built by reading the local page address linking table.

A method for managing a memory apparatus comprising a plurality of NV memory elements is disclosed. The method includes providing a physical block of each NV memory element with a local page address linking table by obtaining a first host address and first data from a first host command, and obtaining a second host address and second data from a second host command; linking the first host address to a first page of the physical block; and linking the second host address to a second page of the physical block. A global page address linking table is built by reading the local page address linking tables and stored in a volatile memory. For the local page address linking table, a difference value of the first host address and the second host address is greater than a number of pages of the physical block.

A memory apparatus includes: a plurality of non-volatile (NV) memory elements each including a plurality of physical blocks; a volatile memory for storing a global page address linking table; a transmission interface, for receiving commands from a host; and a processing unit, for obtaining a first host address and first data from a first host command, and a second host address and second data from a second host command, linking the first host address to a first page of a physical block and storing the first data in the first page, and linking the second host address to a second page of the physical block and storing the second data in the second page to build a local page address linking table; wherein a difference value of the first host address and the second host address is greater than a number of pages of the physical block.

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element including a plurality of physical blocks includes: obtaining a first host address and first data from a received first access command; obtaining a second host address and second data from a received second access command; linking the first host address to at least a first page of the physical block and linking the second host address to at least a second page of the physical block; storing the first data and second data into the physical block; and selectively erasing a portion of the physical block according to a valid/invalid page count of the physical block, the valid/invalid page count corresponding to accessing pages of the physical block. A difference value of the first host address and the second host address is greater than a number of pages of the physical block.

A memory apparatus includes at least one non-volatile memory element, which includes a plurality of physical blocks. A method for managing the memory apparatus includes: obtaining a first host address from a received first access command; linking the first host address to a first page of the physical block; obtaining a second host address from a received second access command; linking the second host address to a second page of the physical block; and selectively erasing a portion of the blocks according to a valid/invalid page count of the physical block corresponding to accessing pages of the physical block. A difference value of the first host address and the second host address is greater than a number of pages of the physical block.

A decoding method, a memory storage device and a memory control circuit unit are provided. The decoding method includes: executing at least one first iteration decoding procedure of an LDPC on a first codeword according to a first clock signal by a correcting circuit; generating a control parameter according to a first iteration count of the first iteration decoding procedure; outputting a second clock signal to the correcting circuit according to the control parameter; and executing at least one second iteration decoding procedure of the LDPC on a second codeword according to the second clock signal by the correcting circuit.

Decoding method, memory storage device and memory control circuit unit

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: providing at least one block of the memory apparatus with at least one local page address linking table within the memory apparatus, wherein the at least one local page address linking table includes linking relationships between at least one physical page address of the at least one block and at least one logical page address; and building a global page address linking table of the memory apparatus according to the at least one local page address linking table.

Method for managing a memory apparatus, and associated memory apparatus thereof

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: recording valid/invalid page position information of at least one block; and moving valid data contained in at least a valid page of the block according to the valid/invalid page position information; where the block is an erasing unit. For example, the valid/invalid page position information may contain relative position information of the valid data in the block. More particularly, the valid/invalid page position information may contain a plurality of bits, the ranking of each bit may represent a page address offset of each page within the block, and each bit may respectively indicate whether each page in the block is valid or invalid.

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: building at least one local page address linking table containing a page address linking relationship between a plurality of physical page addresses and at least a logical page address, wherein the local page address linking table includes a first local page address linking table containing a first page address linking relationship of a plurality of first physical pages, and a second local page address linking table containing a second page address linking relationship of a plurality of second physical pages that are different from the first physical pages; building a global page address linking table according to the local page address linking table; and accessing the memory apparatus according to the global page address linking table.

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: providing at least one block of the memory apparatus with at least one local page address linking table within the memory apparatus, wherein the local page address linking table includes linking relationships between physical page addresses and logical page addresses of a plurality of pages; and building a global page address linking table of the memory apparatus according to the local page address linking table. More particularly, the step of providing the block with the local page address linking table further includes: building a temporary local page address linking table for the local page address linking table corresponding to programming/writing operations of the memory apparatus; and temporarily storing the temporary local page address linking table in a volatile memory of the memory apparatus, and updating the temporary local page address linking table when needed.

A flash memory apparatus includes a plurality of blocks comprising a first block, wherein the first block comprises a first page; and a memory controller receiving a first data to be written into the first page of the first block, and when the first page has already been written to, the memory controller further selects one of the blocks as a first cache block, writes the first data into a first cache page of the first cache block and records a number of the first block and a number of the first page into the first cache page, and when receiving a command for updating the first block, the memory controller further updates the first block according to the number of the first block and the number of the first page recorded in the first cache page. A data update method for such a flash memory is also described.

Data update method and flash memory apparatus utilizing a cache block

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: providing at least one block of the memory apparatus with at least one local page address linking table within the memory apparatus, wherein the local page address linking table comprises linking relationships between physical page addresses and logical page addresses of a plurality of pages; and building a global page address linking table of the memory apparatus according to the local page address linking table.

A method for managing a memory apparatus including at least one non-volatile (NV) memory element includes: recording usage information of at least one block during accessing pages of the block; and determining whether to erase a portion of the blocks according to the usage information. For example, the usage information includes a valid page count table for recording valid page counts of the blocks, respectively; and the ranking of a field of the valid page count table represents a physical block address, and the content of the field represents an associated valid page count. In another example, the usage information includes an invalid page count table for recording invalid page counts of the blocks, respectively; and the ranking of a field of the invalid page count table represents a physical block address, and the content of the field represents an associated invalid page count.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Tsai-Cheng Lin