Patents Examined by Young Kim
  • Patent number: 11972143
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are techniques for balancing write commands directed to a non-volatile memory. According to some embodiments, a method may include caching a plurality of write commands into a write cache, and, in response to determining that an available capacity of the write cache satisfies a first threshold value: performing at least one write operation by directing data associated with the write commands in the write cache to the first partition of the non-volatile memory in response to determining that an available capacity of a first partition of the non-volatile memory satisfies a second threshold value; and performing at least one write operation by directing data associated with the write commands in the write cache to a second partition of the non-volatile memory in response to determining that the available capacity of the first partition of the non-volatile memory does not satisfy the second threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 30, 2024
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Matthew J. Byom, Tudor Antoniu, Alexander Paley, Andrew W. Vogan, Muhammad N. Ashraf
  • Patent number: 11960754
    Abstract: A logical array having a plurality of memory banks is constructed, wherein each of the plurality of memory banks is split into a plurality of slots. A plurality of elements corresponding to a plurality of data components are stored in the plurality of slots of each of the plurality of memory banks of the logical array. The location of a data component stored in the memory component is determined by locating elements stored in a particular slot of the plurality of slots; and performing a corrective search on the located elements in the particular slot to locate a particular element. The data component is accessed based on the location of the particular element.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2024
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Revanth Kamaraj, Brian Toronyi, Balwinder Pal Sethi, Trapti Jain, Madhu, Chandrakanth Rapalli
  • Patent number: 11941285
    Abstract: Disclosed is a system that comprises a memory device and a processing device, operatively coupled with the memory device, to perform operations that include, receiving a read request to perform a read operation on a block of the memory device; determining whether an entry corresponding to the block is stored in a data structure associated with the memory device; responsive to the entry being stored in the data structure, incrementing a counter associated with the block to track a number of read operations performed on the block of the memory device; resetting a timer associated with the block to an initial value, wherein the timer is to track a period of time that elapses since the read operation was performed on the block of the memory device; determining that the counter and the timer satisfy a first criterion; and responsive to determining that the counter and the timer satisfy the first criterion, removing the entry corresponding to the block from the data structure associated with the memory device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 20, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 26, 2024
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Vamsi Pavan Rayaprolu, Kishore Kumar Muchherla, Ashutosh Malshe, Giuseppina Puzzilli, Saeed Sharifi Tehrani
  • Patent number: 11914860
    Abstract: A processor receives, from an input device, input data for processing. Upon determining that the input data corresponds to an artificial intelligence (AI) application, the processor generates an AI command for performing read or write operations for a memory device that is configured to store data for a plurality of applications including the AI application, the AI command characterized by an operational code and including information about one or more components of the AI application corresponding to the input data. The processor sends the AI command and the input data to a storage controller managing the memory device, wherein the read or write operations for the memory device are performed by the storage controller using the operational code and the information included in the AI command. The processor receives, from the storage controller, a result of the read or write operations performed on the memory device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2024
    Assignee: Macronix International Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Chun-Hung Lai, Hung-Sheng Chang
  • Patent number: 11886736
    Abstract: A method includes determining respective memory access counts of a plurality of blocks of non-volatile memory cells that are grouped into a plurality of respective groups, comparing the respective memory access counts to respective memory access thresholds, determining a respective memory access count of a block of non-volatile memory cells exceeds a respective memory access threshold, and performing a media scan operation on the block of non-volatile memory cells.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Guang Hu
  • Patent number: 11868645
    Abstract: A method of operating a controller for controlling a memory device that comprises a plurality of memory cell blocks including outputting block address information based on reliability information for each of the memory cell blocks, providing a patrol read command to the memory device, and controlling the memory device to perform the patrol read operation in response to the patrol read command wherein the block address information comprises an order of the patrol read operation for the memory cell blocks based on the reliability information may be provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 26, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 9, 2024
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hosung Ahn, Younsoo Cheon
  • Patent number: 11860669
    Abstract: The invention introduces a method, an apparatus and a non-transitory computer program product for storing data in flash memory. The method is performed by a processing unit when loading and executing program code of a flash translation layer to include: dividing storage space of a flash module into a first region and a second region; programming data belonging to a first partition type received from a host side into first physical blocks of the first region only; and programming data belonging to a second partition type received from the host side into the first physical blocks of the first region and the second physical blocks of the second region. With the region division and the policy for writing data into the regions in terms of data characteristics of different partition types, storage space of the flash module would be used more effective.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: SILICON MOTION, INC.
    Inventor: Kuan-Yu Ke
  • Patent number: 11782634
    Abstract: Non-volatile Random Access Memory (NVR) on a storage system may be dynamically converted between use as temporary memory in a memory context and use as persistent memory in a storage context. NVR (e.g., embodied as DIMM) may be utilized in a hybrid capacity, where some of the NVR is used as memory and some of the NVR is used as storage, and where NVR memory is converted to memory as needed, dynamically as I/O is being processed using the NVR. A host system may be directly connected to an internal switching fabric of the data storage system without an intervening component of the storage system (e.g., a director) controlling access of the host system to the internal fabric or to the memory. The host system may provision and use the NVR as storage by directly communicating with the NVR over the internal fabric, for example, using RDMA.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2023
    Assignee: EMC IP Holding Company LLC
    Inventors: Owen Martin, Earl Medeiros, Parmeshwr Prasad, Rahul Deo Vishwakarma
  • Patent number: 11762578
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method that includes managing a buffer pool of pages into a ring sub-chain comprising pages linked in a ring, and a linear sub-chain comprising pages linked in a line from a header, and moving a page between the linear sub-chain and the ring sub-chain based on a moving schema evaluating a chain management characteristic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2023
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shuo Li, Xiaobo Wang, Sheng Yan Sun, Hong Mei Zhang
  • Patent number: 11748023
    Abstract: Power recovery for data storage devices with an efficient space trimming technology is shown. A controller scans a non-volatile memory according to a programming order, collects a sequence of trimming information flags, and interprets a sequence of storage information scanned from the non-volatile memory to identify logical addresses and trimming code. Based on the logical addresses, a host-to-device mapping (H2F) table is rebuilt. Based on the trimming code, information of medium-length trimming and information of long-length trimming are recognized from a storage area of the non-volatile memory. According to the trimming information for medium-length trimming, dummy mapping data is programmed to the H2F table. According to the trimming information for long-length trimming, a trimming bitmap (TBM) is rebuilt. Each bit in the TBM marks space trimming of a first length.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2020
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2023
    Assignee: SILICON MOTION, INC.
    Inventor: Yu-Hsiang Chung
  • Patent number: 11733892
    Abstract: An apparatus can include a partial superblock memory management component. The partial superblock memory management component can identify bad blocks in respective planes of a block of non-volatile memory cells. The partial superblock memory management component can determine that a plane of the respective planes includes at least good block in at least one different block of non-volatile memory cells. The partial superblock memory management component can perform an operation to reallocate the at least one good block in the plane to the at least one bad block in the plane to form blocks of non-volatile memory cells having a quantity of bad blocks that satisfies a bad block threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2023
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Xiangang Luo, Ashutosh Malshe, Huachen Li, Giuseppe D'eliseo, Jianmin Huang
  • Patent number: 11709596
    Abstract: Techniques involve: selecting a stream from a plurality of streams having respective update frequencies, the update frequency of the selected stream matching an update frequency of to-be-written data; determining a label of the data based on a label of the selected stream; and sending a write request for the data to a storage system, the write request comprising the label of the data, so that the storage system performs a write operation for the data based on the stream identified by the label. Accordingly, a write amplification factor can be reduced, thereby increasing the effective life of a storage device and improving read and write performance of the storage system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 25, 2023
    Assignee: EMC IP Holding Company LLC
    Inventors: Shuo Lv, Leihu Zhang
  • Patent number: 11704234
    Abstract: The present invention provides a method for accessing a flash memory module is disclosed, wherein the flash memory module includes at least one flash memory chip, each flash memory chip includes a plurality of block, each block is implemented by a plurality of word lines, each word line corresponds to K pages, and each word line includes a plurality of memory cells supporting a plurality of states, and the method includes the steps of: receiving data from a host device; generating dummy data; and writing the data with the dummy data to a plurality of specific blocks, wherein for each of a portion of the word lines of the specific blocks, the dummy data is written into at least one of the K pages, and the data from the host device is written into the other page(s) of the K pages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 18, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Motion, Inc.
    Inventor: Tsung-Chieh Yang
  • Patent number: 11669267
    Abstract: Technologies and techniques for use by a data storage controller or similar device for throttling the delivery of completion entries pertaining to the execution of commands by a nonvolatile memory (NVM) device are provided. In an illustrative example, the data storage controller selectively throttles the delivery of completion entries to a host device using uniform delivery intervals to provide for stable delivery of completion entries to the host. In some examples, the throttling is achieved by storing new completion entries in a completion queue of the host while initially setting corresponding indicator bits within the completion entries (e.g. phase tags) to cause the host to ignore the new completion entries as though the new entries were old entries. Later, after a throttling delay interval, the indicator bits are inverted to allow the host to recognize and process the new completion entries. NVMe examples are provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2023
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Shay Benisty
  • Patent number: 11644991
    Abstract: According to one embodiment, a storage device includes a nonvolatile memory and a controller. The controller manages memory area sets. The controller distributes a first memory area set into a first group. The controller distributes a second memory area set into a second group. The controller comprises first to fourth circuits. The first circuit processes a first read request from a host to the first memory area set. The second circuit processes a first write request from the host to the first memory area set. The third circuit processes a second read request from the host to the second memory area set. The fourth circuit processes a second write request from the host to the second memory area set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2021
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2023
    Assignee: Kioxia Corporation
    Inventors: Makiko Numata, Mitsunori Tadokoro
  • Patent number: 11635894
    Abstract: Disclosed in some examples are improvements to data placement architectures in NAND that provide additional data protection through an improved NAND data placement schema that allows for recovery from certain failure scenarios. The present disclosure stripes data diagonally across page lines and planes to enhance the data protection. Parity bits are stored in SLC blocks for extra protection until the block is finished writing and then the parity bits may be deleted.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2023
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Paolo Papa, Carminantonio Manganelli, Massimo Iaculo, Giuseppe D'Eliseo, Alberto Sassara
  • Patent number: 11599300
    Abstract: A method includes performing a first read operation involving a set of memory cells using a first voltage, determining a quantity of bits associated with the set of memory cells based on the first read operation, performing a second read operation involving the set of memory cells using a second voltage that is greater than the first voltage when the quantity of bits is above a threshold quantity of bits for the set of memory cells, and performing the second read operation involving the set of memory cells using a third voltage that is less than the first voltage when the quantity of bits is below the threshold quantity of bits for the set of memory cells.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2023
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Chun Sum Yeung, Guang Hu, Ting Luo, Tao Liu
  • Patent number: 11599286
    Abstract: A method includes determining respective valid translation unit counts of a block of non-volatile memory cells over a period of time, determining a rate of change of the respective valid translation unit counts of the block of non-volatile memory cells over the period of time, comparing the rate of change of the valid translation unit counts to a bin transition rate, and based on comparing the rate of change of the valid translation unit counts to the bin transition rate, performing a media management operation on the block of non-volatile memory cells.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2023
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashutosh Malshe, Vamsi Pavan Rayaprolu, Kishore K. Muchherla
  • Patent number: 11579795
    Abstract: A control method for a solid state drive is provided. The solid state drive includes a non-volatile memory with plural blocks. In a step (a1), a block is opened. In a step (a2), a program action is performed to store a valid write data into the open block. Then, a step (a3) is performed to judge whether an amount of the valid write data in the open block reaches a predetermined capacity. In a step (a4), if the amount of the valid write data in the open block does not reach the predetermined capacity, the step (a2) is performed again. In a step (a5), if the amount of the valid write data in the open block reaches the predetermined capacity, the open block is closed and the step (a1) is performed again. The predetermined capacity is lower than a capacity of one block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2021
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2023
    Assignee: SOLID STATE STORAGE TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Shih-Hung Hsieh, Hsuan-Yi Chiang, Shi-Xuan Chen, Tzu-Chieh Lin
  • Patent number: 11573720
    Abstract: A includes a memory device and a processing device, operatively coupled to the memory device. The processing device is to: initialize a block family associated with the memory device; initialize a timer at initialization of the block family; and aggregate temperature values received from sensor(s) of the memory device over time to generate an aggregate temperature. Responsive to programming a page residing on the memory device, the processing device associates the page with the block family. The processing device closes the block family in response to the aggregate temperature being greater than a first temperature value and the timer reaching a first time value. The processing device closes the block family in response to the aggregate temperature being less than or equal to the first temperature value and the timer reaching a second time value that is greater than the first time value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2023
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Sheperek, Larry J. Koudele, Bruce A. Liikanen, Steven Michael Kientz, Kishore Kumar Muchherla