Patents Examined by Hashem Farrokh
  • Patent number: 10592117
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a memory system is configured to operate as one of semiconductor storage devices in a storage array. The memory system includes a nonvolatile memory and a controller. The controller executes a write operation of writing data, received from a host, to the nonvolatile memory, and an internal operation for managing the memory system. When starting the internal operation, the controller estimates a value related to an amount of reduction in performance of the write operation due to the start of the internal operation, based on content of the started internal operation, and notifies the host or one or more other semiconductor storage devices of the estimated value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2020
    Assignee: TOSHIBA MEMORY CORPORATION
    Inventor: Shinichi Kanno
  • Patent number: 10592426
    Abstract: A method for accessing a physical region page (PRP) list includes obtaining a PRP address of a PRP list, in which the PRP address has M bits; performing operation to the first N bits of the PRP address and the N+1 th to Mth bits of the PRP address respectively to obtain a page base address if the PRP address is within a page boundary; and performing operation to the first N bits of the PRP address and the N+1 th to Mth bits of the PRP address respectively to obtain next PRP address pointer if the PRP address reaches the page boundary. N is an integer, and M is an integer larger than N.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 18, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2020
    Assignee: ASMEDIA TECHNOLOGY INC.
    Inventor: Wen-Cheng Chen
  • Patent number: 10585800
    Abstract: A method and a system detects a cache line as a potential or confirmed hot cache line based on receiving an intervention of a processor associated with a fetch of the cache line. The method and system include suppressing an action of operations associated with the hot cache line. A related method and system detect an intervention and, in response, communicates an intervention notification to another processor. An alternative method and system detect a hot data object associated with an intervention event of an application. The method and system can suppress actions of operations associated with the hot data object. An alternative method and system can detect and communicate an intervention associated with a data object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 10, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Christian Zoellin, Christian Jacobi, Chung-Lung K. Shum, Martin Recktenwald, Anthony Saporito, Aaron Tsai
  • Patent number: 10579525
    Abstract: A method and a system detects a cache line as a potential or confirmed hot cache line based on receiving an intervention of a processor associated with a fetch of the cache line. The method and system include suppressing an action of operations associated with the hot cache line. A related method and system detect an intervention and, in response, communicates an intervention notification to another processor. An alternative method and system detect a hot data object associated with an intervention event of an application. The method and system can suppress actions of operations associated with the hot data object. An alternative method and system can detect and communicate an intervention associated with a data object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2020
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Christian Zoellin, Christian Jacobi, Chung-Lung K. Shum, Martin Recktenwald, Anthony Saporito, Aaron Tsai
  • Patent number: 10564888
    Abstract: A method and system for visualizing a correlation between host commands and storage system performance are provided. In one embodiment, a method comprises receiving information concerning host operations of a host performed over a time period; receiving information concerning storage system operations of a storage system performed over the time period; and simultaneously displaying both the host operations and the storage system operations over the time period. Other embodiments are possible, and each of the embodiments can be used alone or together in combination.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2020
    Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC
    Inventors: Tal Shaked, Omer Gilad, Liat Hod, Eyal Sobol, Einav Zilberstein, Judah Gamliel Hahn
  • Patent number: 10552321
    Abstract: Enhanced data buffer control in data systems is presented herein. In one example, a method of handling data buffer resources in a graphics processor includes establishing a pool of available memory pages tracked by memory pointers for use in a growable data structure. Responsive to requests by at least a shader unit of the graphics processor for space in the growable data structure in which to write shader data, the method includes providing to the shader unit at least write pointers to locations within memory pages from the growable data structure in accordance with data sizes indicated in the requests. Responsive to exceeding a threshold fullness of the growable data structure, the method includes allocating at least one further memory page from the pool of available memory pages for inclusion in the growable data structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2020
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Jason Matthew Gould, Ivan Nevraev
  • Patent number: 10545548
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a memory device includes a memory and a controller circuit. The memory holds first data and second data. The first data and the second data are results of monitoring state of the memory device. The first data and the second data include values indicating results of monitoring attributes common between these data. The values are updated according to operation status of the memory device. The controller circuit switches an object to be read from the memory between the first data and the second data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2020
    Assignee: Toshiba Memory Corporation
    Inventor: Yoshiyuki Nakada
  • Patent number: 10534716
    Abstract: A hybrid data storage device disclosed herein includes a main data store, one or more data storage caches, and a data storage cache management sub-system. The hybrid data storage device is configured to limit write operations on the one or more data storage caches to less than an endurance value for the data storage cache. In one implementation, the data storage cache management sub-system limits or denies requests for promotion of data from the main data store to the one or more data storage caches. In another implementation, the data storage cache management sub-system limits garbage collection operations on the data storage cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2020
    Assignee: SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC
    Inventors: Sumanth Jannyavula Venkata, Mark A. Gaertner, Jonathan G. Backman
  • Patent number: 10528464
    Abstract: A memory system includes a nonvolatile memory having memory dies controlled in parallel and each including a plurality of physical blocks, and a controller. The controller manages a plurality of logical areas for storing data portions received from the host and parities calculated from the data portions, the logical areas including first and second logical areas for storing first and second parity groups, respectively. Each first parity group includes k data portions received from the host and m parities calculated therefrom. Each second parity group includes k? data portions received from the host and m? parities calculated therefrom. Also, the controller maps each logical area to storage locations in the non-volatile memory dies such that the data portions and the parities of any one parity group are each stored in a different physical block in a set of physical blocks selected from different non-volatile memory dies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2017
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2020
    Assignee: Toshiba Memory Corporation
    Inventors: Masahiro Ishiyama, Shigehiro Asano
  • Patent number: 10521157
    Abstract: A NAND flash memory including a control unit which includes a signal receiving circuit and a flash array; the signal receiving circuit is used to receive a cache read command from an external NAND controller; the flash array includes at least one chip, each chip includes at least one plane, each plane includes a plurality of blocks, each block includes a plurality of pages; when a cache read command is received, it reads pages in a first block according to an address of the page until reaching the last page in the first block; when the last page in the first block is reached, an address of a next to-be-read page is generated according to an address of the last page in the first block to allow the cache read command to read the next to-be-read page.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignees: GigaDevice Semiconductor (Shanghai) Inc., GigaDevice Semiconductor (Beijing) Inc., GigaDevice Semiconductor (Hefei) Inc.
    Inventor: Minyi Chen
  • Patent number: 10509568
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes a nonvolatile memory, a flag settable to a first value indicating that a program stored in a memory region of the nonvolatile memory has not been verified, and to a second value indicating that the program has been verified, a switching circuit configured to set the flag to the first value, in response to a request for permission to modify the program stored in the memory region, and a verification circuit that sets the flag to the second value upon verification of the program stored in the memory region, and upon restart of the information processing apparatus, carries out a verification process of the program prior to execution of the program if the first value is set in the flag, and executes the program without the verification process if the second value is set in the flag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2019
    Assignee: KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOSHIBA
    Inventors: Mikio Hashimoto, Kentaro Umesawa, Yoshiyuki Amanuma
  • Patent number: 10503411
    Abstract: An optimized operating method for a non-volatile memory. A microcontroller allocates the non-volatile memory to store write data issued by a host. The microcontroller dynamically adjusts a first-writing-mode threshold. The first-writing-mode threshold value is provided for the microcontroller to determine whether to use a first writing mode to allocate the non-volatile memory to store the write data issued by the host. In comparison with the first writing mode, more bits of data are stored in one storage cell in a second writing mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: Silicon Motion, Inc.
    Inventor: Ying-Chun Hung
  • Patent number: 10503654
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus related to framework and/or methodology for selective caching of Erasure Coded fragments in a distributed storage system are described. In one embodiment, a plurality of fragments of a data object are generated. Each of the plurality of fragments is Erasure Coded (EC) prior to storage at a storage node of a plurality of storage nodes. Each of the plurality of fragments is transmitted with a caching hint to indicate whether that fragment is to be cached at the storage node. Other embodiments are also disclosed and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Arun Raghunath, Michael P. Mesnier, Yi Zou
  • Patent number: 10496534
    Abstract: A method of manual memory management is described. In response to detecting an access violation triggered by the use of an invalid reference to an object in a manual heap, a source of the access in a register or stack is identified. An updated reference for the object using stored mapping data is determined and used to replace the invalid reference in the source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 15, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 3, 2019
    Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
    Inventors: Dimitrios Vytiniotis, Manuel Silverio da Silva Costa, Kapil Vaswani, Matthew John Parkinson, Piyus Kumar Kedia
  • Patent number: 10496406
    Abstract: Handling unaligned load operations, including: receiving a request to load data stored within a range of addresses; determining that the range of addresses includes addresses associated with a plurality of caches, wherein each of the plurality of caches are associated with a distinct processor slice; issuing, to each distinct processor slice, a request to load data stored within a cache associated with the distinct processor slice, wherein the request to load data stored within the cache associated with the distinct processor slice includes a portion of the range of addresses; executing, by each distinct processor slice, the request to load data stored within the cache associated with the distinct processor slice; and receiving, over a plurality of data communications busses, execution results from each distinct processor slice, wherein each data communications busses is associated with one of the distinct processor slices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 21, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 3, 2019
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sundeep Chadha, Robert A. Cordes, David A. Hrusecky, Hung Q. Le, Jentje Leenstra, Dung Q. Nguyen, Brian W. Thompto, Albert J. Van Norstrand, Jr.
  • Patent number: 10489290
    Abstract: A data storage apparatus includes a nonvolatile memory device, a random-access memory including an address mapping table configured to store mapping information between a logical address received from a host apparatus and a physical address for the nonvolatile memory device, and a processor configured to generate a modified write logical address by changing a value of a specific bit among bits of a write logical address when a write request is received from the host apparatus, and store the modified write logical address in the address mapping table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2019
    Assignee: SK hynix Inc.
    Inventor: Soo Nyun Kim
  • Patent number: 10482021
    Abstract: In an aspect, high priority lines are stored starting at an address aligned to a cache line size for instance 64 bytes, and low priority lines are stored in memory space left by the compression of high priority lines. The space left by the high priority lines and hence the low priority lines themselves are managed through pointers also stored in memory. In this manner, low priority lines contents can be moved to different memory locations as needed. The efficiency of higher priority compressed memory accesses is improved by removing the need for indirection otherwise required to find and access compressed memory lines, this is especially advantageous for immutable compressed contents. The use of pointers for low priority is advantageous due to the full flexibility of placement, especially for mutable compressed contents that may need movement within memory for instance as it changes in size over time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 19, 2019
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Andres Alejandro Oportus Valenzuela, Nieyan Geng, Christopher Edward Koob, Gurvinder Singh Chhabra, Richard Senior, Anand Janakiraman
  • Patent number: 10452471
    Abstract: A non-volatile storage apparatus includes a set of non-volatile memory cells and one or more control circuits in communication with the set of non-volatile memory cells. The one or more control circuits are configured to identify a most recently written portion of the set of non-volatile memory cells and to compare an error rate of data stored in the most recently written portion with a reference error rate from a reference portion of the set of non-volatile memory cells to determine whether the most recently written portion is fully written or partially written.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2019
    Assignee: WESTERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventors: Zhenlei Shen, Nian Niles Yang, Chao-Han Cheng
  • Patent number: 10452537
    Abstract: A system and method is disclosed for managing data in a non-volatile memory. The system may include a non-volatile memory having multiple non-volatile memory sub-drives. A controller of the memory system is configured to route incoming host data to a desired sub-drive, keep data within the same sub-drive as its source during a garbage collection operation, and re-map data between sub-drives, separate from any garbage collection operation, when a sub-drive overflows its designated amount logical address space. The method may include initial data sorting of host writes into sub-drives based on any number of hot/cold sorting functions. In one implementation, the initial host write data sorting may be based on a host list of recently written blocks for each sub-drive and a second write to a logical address encompassed by the list may trigger routing the host write to a hotter sub-drive than the current sub-drive.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2019
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets, Liam Michael Parker
  • Patent number: 10445011
    Abstract: A flash memory storage apparatus having a plurality of operation modes is provided. The flash memory storage apparatus includes a memory controller circuit and a memory cell array. The memory controller circuit is configured to control the flash memory storage apparatus to operate in one of the operation modes. The operation modes include a low standby current mode. The memory cell array is coupled to the memory controller circuit. The memory cell array is configured to store data. The data includes read-only memory data. The memory controller circuit controls the flash memory storage apparatus to enter the low standby current mode according to a first command. The memory controller circuit wakes up the flash memory storage apparatus from the low standby current mode according to a second command. When the flash memory storage apparatus operates in the low standby current mode, the read-only memory data is kept.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2018
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2019
    Assignee: Winbond Electronics Corp.
    Inventor: Chung-Zen Chen