Abstract: A method for performing data access management of a memory device in a predetermined communications architecture with aid of unbalanced table search and associated apparatus are provided. The method may include: utilizing a memory controller to receive a plurality of host commands from a host device through a transmission interface circuit of the memory controller, perform the unbalanced table search to receive a set of first data and a set of second data with first and second active blocks according to first and second commands among the host commands, respectively, and update first and second temporary physical-to-logical (P2L) address mapping tables; and selectively updating a first P2L address mapping table and a second P2L address mapping table according to the first temporary P2L address mapping table and the second temporary P2L address mapping table, respectively, for performing subsequent processing.

Abstract: Disclosed is a handshaking method applied to a data storage system including a host system and a data storage device. The handshaking method includes the following steps: applying for a host memory buffer from the host system by the data storage device; transmitting, by the host system, a command descriptor to the host memory buffer, so that the data storage device performs standalone behavior based on the command descriptor in the host memory buffer, and transmits an operation log corresponding to the standalone behavior to the host memory buffer; and continuously monitoring, by the host system, the host memory buffer until the data storage device completes the standalone behavior and transmits a response descriptor to the host memory buffer. Therefore, the host memory buffer is used as a communication interface between the host system and the data storage device, so that the data storage device can perform more diverse operations.

Abstract: A bridge control chip includes a first interface, a second interface, and a processor, wherein the first interface is coupled to a host device, the second interface is coupled to a memory device, and the memory device is a flash memory device. The processor is arranged to execute commands in a queue in sequence, to transmit the commands in the queue to the memory device through the second interface in sequence, wherein when the processor receives one or more received commands from the host device, the processor sorts the one or more received commands and commands which are currently and temporarily stored in the queue according to a distance between a logical address of each of the one or more received commands and a logical address of a current command in the queue that is currently executed by the processor.

Abstract: An interface circuit includes multiple signal processing devices and a monitor and calibration module. The monitor and calibration module includes multiple monitor circuits, multiple calibration circuits, a compensation accelerator and a processor. The monitor circuits monitor at least one of an amplitude, a frequency and jitter in at least one of a reception signal and a transmission signal to correspondingly generate a monitored result and monitor at least one of power supplying voltage and ground voltage to correspondingly generate a monitored result. The compensation accelerator collects the monitored results and generates a calibration control signal corresponding to each calibration circuit according to calibration commands. The processor generates the calibration commands based on the monitored results.

Abstract: The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for generating a Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) code. The apparatus includes: a LDPC encoder, a look-ahead circuitry and an exclusive-OR (XOR) calculation circuitry. The LDPC encoder is arranged operably to encode a front part of a user data using a 2-stage encoding algorithm with a parity check matrix to generate a first calculation result. The look-ahead circuitry is arranged operably to perform a dot product operation on a rear part of the user data and one of a plurality of feature rows corresponding to the parity check matrix to generate a second calculation result in each iteration. The XOR calculation circuitry is arranged operably to perform an XOR operation on the first calculation result and the second calculation result to generate a front part of the LDPC code.

Abstract: The present invention provides a control method of a flash memory controller, which includes the steps of: setting a waiting time in an interrupt coalescing mechanism, and setting a timer, wherein a timeout value of the timer is equal to the waiting time; receiving multiple commands from a submission queue in a host device, generating multiple command responses after processing the multiple commands, and writing the multiple command responses to a completion queue in the host device; receiving a submission queue tail and a completion queue head from the host device; and when the timer reaches the timeout value, subtracting the completion queue head from the submission queue tail to obtain a queue depth of a command queue of the host device.

Abstract: A method for performing data access management of a memory device in a predetermined communications architecture with aid of unbalanced table update and associated apparatus are provided. The method may include: utilizing a memory controller to receive a plurality of host commands from a host device through a transmission interface circuit of the memory controller, receive a set of first data and a set of second data with first and second active blocks according to first and second commands among the host commands, respectively, and update first and second temporary physical-to-logical (P2L) address mapping tables; and in response to a table region of any temporary P2L address mapping table being full, updating a first P2L address mapping table according to the first temporary P2L address mapping table and selectively updating a second P2L address mapping table according to the second temporary P2L address mapping table, for performing subsequent processing.

Abstract: A flash memory controller to be used in a storage device and coupled to a flash memory device of the storage device through a specific communication interface. The flash memory controller sends an error injection access command signal to the flash memory device through the specific communication interface to configure an operation of a debug circuit of the flash memory device to make the debug circuit automatically generate debug information of an access operation of the error injection access command signal sent from the flash memory controller, transmit the generated debug information from the flash memory device to the flash memory controller via the I/O control circuit and the specific communication interface, with controlling a memory cell array of flash memory device generating failure errors.

Abstract: A method for reading data stored in a flash memory includes at least the following steps: controlling the flash memory to perform a plurality of read operations upon a plurality of memory cells included in the flash memory; obtaining a plurality of bit sequences read from the memory cells, respectively, wherein the read operations read bits of a predetermined bit order from the memory cells by utilizing different control gate voltage settings; and determining readout information of the memory cells according to binary digit distribution characteristics of the bit sequences.

Abstract: The present invention provides a control method of the memory device. In the operation of the memory device, the soft information is compressed by a control circuit within the flash memory module, so that the second readout information including the compressed soft information transmitted by the flash memory module has much smaller data size. Therefore, the performance of the memory interface will not be affected due to the bandwidth occupied by the soft information transmission.

Abstract: The present invention provides a control method of a flash memory controller, wherein the flash memory controller is configured to access a flash memory module, and the flash memory module includes a plurality of blocks. The control method includes the steps of: obtaining a read count of a specific block; obtaining a time stamp of the specific block, wherein the time stamp is a write time of the specific block; calculating a time difference between a current system time and the time stamp of the specific block; and using the read count of the specific block and the time difference, and referring to a read count and threshold time mapping table to determine whether to arrange the specific block in a garbage collection pool.

Abstract: 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.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, and an apparatus for debugging a solid-state disk (SSD) device. The method is performed by a processing unit of a single-board personal computer (PC) to include: simulating to issue a first Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) command through a General-Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) interface (I/F) to the SSD device for stopping a running of a processing unit of a flash controller in the SSD device; simulating to issue a second JTAG command through the GPIO I/F to the SSD device for forcing the SSD device to exit a sleep mode; and simulating to issue a third JTAG command through the GPIO I/F to the SSD device for reading a designated length of data from a static random access memory (SRAM) in the SSD device.

Abstract: A method of a flash memory controller includes: using a processor to issue and generate a command signal into a control logic circuit though a bus; buffering the command signal in a specific queue of a specific channel controller of the I/O circuit; and using the arbitrator to control the specific buffer storing a first transmission history information of the specific communication interface.

Abstract: A flash memory controller to be used in a storage device and coupled to a flash memory device of the storage device through a specific communication interface. The flash memory controller sends a debug injection set-feature signal to the flash memory device through the specific communication interface to configure an operation of a debug circuit of the flash memory device to make the debug circuit automatically generate debug information of an access operation of an access command signal sent from the flash memory controller, transmit the generated debug information from the flash memory device to the flash memory controller via the I/O control circuit and the specific communication interface, without controlling a memory cell array of flash memory device generating errors.

Abstract: The present invention provides a control method of a flash memory controller is disclosed, wherein the flash memory controller is configured to access a flash memory module, and the control method comprising: allocating a memory space within a memory for storing data from the host device; dividing the memory space into a plurality of zone buffers, wherein each of the zone buffers is used to store data corresponding to one zone having an opened state; and for a first zone buffer of the plurality of zone buffers, controlling a first buffer and a second buffer within the first zone buffer to alternately store data of a first zone from the host device and write the data of the first zone to a zoned namespace of the flash memory module.

Abstract: The present invention provides a control method of a flash memory controller, wherein the flash memory controller is configured to access a flash memory module, the flash memory module comprises a plurality of blocks, and the control method comprising: receiving a settling command from a host device; in response to the settling command, configuring at least one portion of the flash memory module as a zoned namespace, wherein the zoned namespace logically comprises a plurality of zones; generating parameter information according to a configuration of the zoned namespace; and transmitting the parameter information to the host device, for the host device uses the parameter information to set the zone.

Abstract: A method for performing table management of a memory device in predetermined communications architecture with aid of flexible table page grouping and associated apparatus are provided. The method may include: utilizing the memory controller to perform a table management procedure to manage at least one table regarding internal management of the memory device. For example, the table management procedure may include: in response to updating a first previous table content of a first table among the at least one table being needed, writing a first updated table content of the first table into at least one first updated table page of at least one table block; and writing a first RAID parity of the first updated table content into a first parity page, wherein a first updated table page count of the at least one first updated table page protected by the first parity page is determined in real time.

Abstract: The invention introduces an apparatus and a method for expanding round keys during data encryption. The method includes: configuring a word-processing circuitry to operate in a first mode to calculate a first intermediate calculation result corresponding to an even-number round key according to a last double word of a 0th double word to a 7th double word in each even-number clock cycle starting from a 2nd clock cycle; and configuring the word-processing circuitry to operate in a second mode to calculate a second intermediate calculation result corresponding to an odd-number round key according to the last double word of the 0th double word to the 7th double word in each odd-number clock cycle starting from a 3rd clock cycle. In the first mode, a first data path is formed in the word-processing circuitry, which includes a word split circuitry, a rotate-word circuitry, a substitute-word circuitry, a round-constant circuitry and a word concatenation circuitry.

Abstract: A data storage device includes a memory device and a memory controller. The memory device has a corresponding total storage capacity and includes multiple memory blocks. The total storage capacity is set to a maximum storage capacity provided by the memory blocks by default. The memory blocks include one or more predetermined memory blocks configured as a buffer to receive data from a host device. The memory controller is coupled to the memory device to access the memory device. In response to setting of a maximum amount of write data, the memory controller determines a value of the total storage capacity according to the maximum amount of write data, and determines a number of said one or more predetermined memory blocks according to the value of the total storage capacity and the maximum storage capacity.