Near-Free Lifetime Extension for 3-D nand Flash via Opportunistic Self-Healing

Tianyu Ren, Qiao Li*, Yina Lv, Min Ye, Nan Guan, Chun Jason Xue

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

Abstract

3-D nand flash memories are the dominant storage media in modern data centers due to their high performance, large storage capacity, and low-power consumption. However, the lifetime of flash memory has decreased as technology scaling advances. Recent work has revealed that the number of achievable program/erase (P/E) cycles of flash blocks is related to the dwell time (DT) between two adjacent erase operations. A longer DT can lead to higher-achievable P/E cycles and, therefore, a longer lifetime for flash memories. This article found that the achievable P/E cycles would increase when flash blocks endure uneven DT distribution. Based on this observation, this article presents an opportunistic self-healing method to extend the lifetime of flash memory. By maintaining two groups with unequal block counts, namely, Active Group and Healing Group, the proposed method creates an imbalance in erase operation distribution. The Active Group undergoes more frequent erase operations, resulting in shorter DT, while the Healing Group experiences longer DT. Periodically, the roles of the two groups are switched based on the Active Group's partitioning ratio. This role switching ensures that each block experiences both short and long DT periods, leading to an uneven DT distribution that magnifies the self-healing effect. The evaluation shows that the proposed method can improve the flash lifetime by 19.3% and 13.2% on average with near-free overheads, compared with the baseline and the related work, respectively. © 2024 IEEE.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4226-4237
JournalIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
Volume43
Issue number11
Online published6 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2024

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Xiamen under Grant 3502Z20227023; in part by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China under Project CityU 11217020; in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62202396; and in part by the China Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 20720230072.

Research Keywords

  • Garbage collection
  • nand flash
  • solid state drives. Lifetime management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Near-Free Lifetime Extension for 3-D nand Flash via Opportunistic Self-Healing'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this