Low-Complexity Detection and Decoding Scheme for LDPC-Coded MLC NAND Flash Memory

With the development of manufacture technology, the multi-level cell(MLC)technique dramatically increases the storage density of NAND flash memory. As the result,cell-to-cell interference(CCI) becomes more serious and hence causes an increase in the raw bit error rate of data stored in the cells.Recently, low-density parity-check(LDPC)codes have appeared to be a promising solution to combat the interference of MLC NAND flash memory. However, the decoding complexity of the sum-product algorithm(SPA) is extremely high. In this paper, to improve the accuracy of the log likelihood ratio(LLR) information of each bit in each NAND flash memory cell, we adopt a non-uniform detection(N-UD) which uses the average maximum mutual information to determine the value of the soft-decision reference voltages.Furthermore, with an aim to reduce the decoding complexity and improve the decoding performance, we propose a modified soft reliabilitybased iterative majority-logic decoding(MSRBI-MLGD) algorithm, which uses a non-uniform quantizer based on power function to decode LDPC codes. Simulation results show that our design can offer a desirable trade-off between the performance and complexity for high-column-weight LDPC-coded MLC NAND flash memory.

LDPC Coding Scheme for Improving the Reliability of Multi-Level-Cell NAND Flash Memory in Radiation Environments

Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf(COTS) components in satellites has received much attention due to the low cost. However, commercial memories suffer severe reliability problems in radiation environments. This paper studies the low-density parity-check(LDPC) coding scheme for improving the reliability of multi-level-cell(MLC) NAND Flash memory in radiation environments. Firstly, based on existing physical experiment works, we introduce a new error model for heavyion irradiations; secondly, we explore the optimization of writing voltage allocation to maximize the capacity of the storage channel; thirdly, we design the degree distribution of LDPC codes that is specially suitable for the proposed model; finally, we propose a joint detection-decoding scheme based on LDPC codes, which estimates the storage channel state and executes an adaptive log-likelihood ratio(LLR) calculation to achieve better performance. Simulation results show that, compared with the conventional LDPC coding scheme, the proposed scheme may almost double the lifetime of the MLC NAND Flash memory in radiation environments.

Program Error Mitigation in MLC NAND Flash Memory with Soft Decision Decoders

Benefiting from strong decoding capabilities,soft-decision decoding has been used to replace hard-decision decoding in various communication systems,and NAND flash memory systems are no exception.However,soft-decision decoding relies heavily on accurate soft information.Owing to the incremental step pulse programming(ISPP),program errors(PEs)in multi-level cell(MLC)NAND flash memory have different characteristics compared to other types of errors,which is very difficult to obtain such accurate soft information.Therefore,the characteristics of the log-likelihood ratio(LLR)of PEs are investigated first in this paper.Accordingly,a PE-aware statistical method is proposed to determine the usage of PE mitigation schemes.In order to reduce the PE estimating workload of the controller,an adaptive blind clipping(ABC)scheme is proposed subsequently to approximate the PEs contaminated LLR with different decoding trials.Finally,simulation results demonstrate that(1)the proposed PE-aware statistical method is effective in practice,and(2)ABC scheme is able to provide satisfactory bit error rate(BER)and frame error rate(FER)performance in a penalty of negligible increasing of decoding latency.

A high efficiency all-PMOS charge pump for 3D NAND flash memory

For 3D vertical NAND flash memory, the charge pump output load is much larger than that of the planar NAND, resulting in the performance degradation of the conventional Dickson charge pump. Therefore, a novel all PMOS charge pump with high voltage boosting efficiency, large driving capability and high power efficiency for 3D V-NAND has been proposed. In this circuit, the Pellieoni structure is used to enhance the driving capability, two auxiliary substrate bias PMOS transistors are added to mitigate the body effect, and the degradation of the output voltage and boost efficiency caused by the threshold voltage drop is eliminated by dynamic gate control structure. Simulated results show that the proposed charge pump circuit can achieve the maximum boost efficiency of 86% and power efficiency of 50%. The output voltage of the proposed 9 stages charge pump can exceed 2 V under 2 MHz clock frequency in 2X nm 3D V-NAND technology. Our results provide guidance for the peripheral circuit design of high density 3D V-NAND integration.