Abstract:
A flash memory system includes a multi level cell (MLC) flash memory organized into blocks and having pages of information, which has data and spare. The MLC flash memory includes at least a temporary area to store at least a portion of a page of information during a partial write operation. The MLC flash memory stores a page of information into a block identified by a target physical address. The flash memory system further includes a flash card micro-controller causes communication between a host flash card controller and the MLC flash memory and includes a buffer memory configured to store a portion of a page of information, where the micro-controller writes the at least a portion of a page of information to the temporary area and later copies the written at least a portion of a page of information into the block identified by a target physical address.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
   This application is a continuation-in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/957,089, entitled “Flash Card System”, filed on Oct. 1, 2004, now abandoned by Lee et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference as though set forth in full. This application is related to U.S. Pat. No. 7,082,056, entitled “Flash Memory Device and Architecture with Multi Level Cells”, filed on Mar. 12, 2004 by Ben W. Chen et al., and issued on Jul. 25, 2006, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference as though set forth in full. 

   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   1. Field of the Invention 
   This invention relates to the field of digital systems employing non-volatile (or flash) memory and particularly multi level cell (MLC) flash. 
   2. Description of the Prior Art 
   Solid state memory or non-volatile memory, in the form of flash, is readily employed in numerous applications requiring saving and retrieving digital information. Some use thereof includes memory sticks, disk drives, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other digital mobile devices. 
   NAND flash memory is a type of flash memory constructed from electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) cells, which are an array of floating gate transistors. NAND refers to the type of gate used in the flash memory. NAND flash memory uses tunnel injection for write and tunnel release during erase operations. NAND flash, which is a type of non-volatile memory, is ideal for storage of digital information in portable devices. 
   However, NAND flash memory does have limitations. Namely, in flash, digital information or data is stored as binary information, i.e. ‘1’ or ‘0’. One limitation posed by NAND flash memory is that during storage of data, which occurs during writing to or programming of the flash memory, data that is ‘1’s can only be stored in the flash memory. Data that is ‘0’s cannot be store until erase occurs of the previously-stored data. In fact, when writing from a state of ‘0’ to a state of ‘1’, the flash memory needs to be erased a “block” at a time, which is undesirable as it adversely affects performance by way of efficiency. The reason for the requirement for erasing a “block” at a time is that while the smallest unit for a read or program operation to NAND flash memory is a byte (eight bits) or a word, the smallest unit for erase is a block. A bit of information or data is represented by a ‘1’ or ‘0’. A block refers to one or more pages of information made of bytes or words, and that which is erasable as a unit. An exemplary page size is 2 kilo (K) bytes of which may be reserved for data and 64 bytes of which are reserved for spare. The structure of a page can be either 4*512+64 bytes or 4*(512+16) bytes, the 512 bytes being used for data and the 16 bytes for address flag, error correction code (ECC) or other non-data information. The structure of a page may be other than the foregoing but essentially similar in the type of information included therein. 
   Single Level Cell (SLC) flash memory and Multi Level Cell (MLC) flash memory are two types of NAND flash memory. As the typical flash in the market, the erase block size of SLC flash is 128K+4K bytes and the erase block size of MLC flash is 256K+8K bytes. Thus, erase operations severe impact performance, particularly, when performed on large capacity memory. Another limitation of NAND flash memory has a finite numbers of times of erase cycles before it becomes unreliable. The number of erase operations that may be performed on NAND flash memory reliably is known to be limited to 10,000 to 1,000,000. 
   A comparison of MLC flash memory with SLC flash memory yields certain advantages and disadvantages by the former when used in consumer applications. The SLC flash memory, being memory cell-based, is capable of storing a single bit of data or information per cell whereas, MLC flash memory is capable of storing two bits of data per cell. Therefore, MLC flash memory has associate therewith twice the memory capacity of SLC flash memory assuming the same technology is used for manufacturing both. Moreover, the performance, reliability and durability costs of the MLC flash memory are higher. Thus, MLC flash memory being lower in cost and with greater memory capacity is desirably employed in consumer products. However, MLC flash memory is also known to have lower write speed than SLC flash memory thereby requiring a longer time to store information, such as digital pictures, therein. In a camera application, for example, this significantly impacts the photographers ability to take multiple shots fast. 
   A block of MLC flash memory includes M pages, M being an integer number with each page being N bytes, with N being an integer value. Fragment, as known in the computer industry, is created easily when the host sequentially sends less N bytes of data because MLC flash memory cannot be re-programmed, thus, the part of the N bytes that is not used to store data is wasted space leading to fragmentation or different parts of user files being located in different areas of memory. 
   Additionally, the life time of the MLC flash memory is limited to 10,000 erase cycles or operations. An entire block must be erased in MLC flash memory before a page can be re-programmed. Therefore, wear leveling techniques are needed to address the MLC flash re-programming problem. 
   Wear leveling is a technique used to distribute use of the memory cells within the MLC flash memory evenly thereby extending the lifetime of the latter. In wear leveling, a memory controller is used to re-map logical addresses, used to by a host to address memory, to different physical addresses, used to address the MLC flash memory, so that write operations are evenly distributed among the memory cells to extend the endurance of the MLC flash memory. 
   There is therefore a need for an MLC flash memory with higher performance by way of faster write operations thereto, less fragmentation and improved reliability. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   Briefly, an embodiment of the present invention includes a flash memory system includes a multi level cell (MLC) flash memory organized into blocks and having pages of information, which has data and spare. The MLC flash memory includes at least a temporary area to store at least a portion of a page of information during a partial write operation. The MLC flash memory stores a page of information into a block identified by a target physical address. The flash memory system further includes a flash card micro-controller causes communication between a host flash card controller and the MLC flash memory and includes a buffer memory configured to store a portion of a page of information, where the micro-controller writes the at least a portion of a page of information to the temporary area and later copies the written at least a portion of a page of information into the block identified by a target physical address. 
   The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments which made reference to the several figures of the drawing. 

   
     IN THE DRAWING 
       FIG. 1  shows a flash (or non-volatile) memory system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 2  shows a flow chart of the steps performed by the flash memory system, in accordance with a method of the present invention. 
       FIG. 3  shows an example of a block including 128 pages with each page having 2K bytes of data area and 64 bytes of spare area. 
       FIGS. 3(   a ) and  3 ( b ) show different structures, as examples, of a page of  FIG. 3 . 
       FIGS. 4-8  show examples of the contents of various memory corresponding the various steps shown in  FIG. 2 . 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   In an embodiment of the present invention, during a partial write operation to MLC flash memory, a temporary storage location, a partial write collector (PWC), of at least one block in size, is used to store data that is to be written during the write operation, serving basically as a basket of information, and later when the write operation resumes, the temporarily stored data is retrieved and written thereby ensuring successful writing of data during the write operation. The temporary storage location includes, at least, the last page that is to be or was written. Otherwise, when data is being written not in a partial write operation manner, it is written to a more permanent location within the MLC flash memory. The PWC can be used in a wear leveling method to enhance reliability and performance of the MLC flash memory. 
   For a more detailed discussion of an exemplary MLC flash memory which can be used with the various embodiments and methods of the present invention, the reader is directed to U.S. Pat. No. 7,082,056, entitled “Flash Memory Device and Architecture With Multi Level Cells”, by Ben W. Chen et al., and issued on Jul. 25, 2006, which is herein incorporated by reference as though set forth in full. 
   Referring now to  FIG. 1 , a flash (or non-volatile) memory system  200 , which may be a part of a computer (personal computer (PC)), digital camera and the like is shown in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, is shown to include a flash controller  202  and a flash memory  204 . The flash memory  204  includes MLC flash memory, either in the form of an array or otherwise, for storing digital information and is organized into blocks of pages and is programmed or written thereto using the various techniques to be discussed shortly in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. The term flash memory represents one or more flash memory devices. The flash memory system  200  is shown coupled to a host  210 , which is shown to include a flash controller  202 . The flash memory system  200  may be implemented as a printed circuit board (PCB) or flash card. The flash memory system  200  can store various types of data including image data and other types of multimedia data. Accordingly, the flash memory system  200  can also be referred to as a multimedia card (MMC). The flash memory  204  is shown to include a PWC block  250  for temporary storage of information including data and spare being written by the user host  210 . 
   In the case where the flash memory  204  is MLC flash memory, being large in size, such as 2 kilo (K) bytes, are written to the memory. In the case where a partial write of a page is being conducted, that is, a portion of a page is written and then the writing stops and the remaining portion is to be written, the write operation is performed inefficiently using current systems and techniques. However, in the embodiment(s) of the present invention, partial write to a page followed by writing of the remainder of the page is advantageously efficiently performed. 
     FIG. 2  shows a flow chart  300  of the steps performed by the flash memory system  200  of  FIG. 1  in performing a write operation to the MLC flash memory within the flash memory  204  as a partial or full write. 
   In  FIG. 2 , at step  302 , the write operation begins, next, at step  304 , a determination is made as to whether or not the address of the last data in a partial write collector (PWC) block is the same as the address to be written thereto. The PWC block is one or more blocks of memory within the flash memory  204  used as a temporary location within which information to be written during a write operation is stored in the case where the write operation is a partial write operation. The address to which information is to be written is initially provided by the flash controller  202  through the flash card interface, shown in  FIG. 1 . 
   Upon a determination that the address to which information is to be written during the write operation matches that of the PWC block, the flow of  FIG. 2 , continues to step  306  where data to be written is collected or stored in the buffer  240 . Next, at  308 , a determination is made as to whether or not a page worth of data has been collected. In the case where a page is 2K bytes, a 2K byte boundary is checked. If it is determined, at  308 , that a page boundary is encountered, the process continues to  310  where a determination is made as to whether or not a “STOP” command has been received from the flash controller  202 . 
   If at  310 , it is determined that the a “STOP” command has been received by the flash memory system  200 , step  312  is performed where a copy of the data stored in the PWC block as well as the data saved in the buffer memory  240  are stored in the PWC block, an example of which is shown in  FIG. 8  and will be discussed further relative to the latter. The foregoing essentially serves to save the data that is being written by the host, in a continuous or sequential form, in the PWC block. 
   In the event, at  304 , in  FIG. 2 , it is determined that the address of the last data in the PWC block does not match the address of the location to which data is being written during this write operation, the process continues to step  314  where the most recent or last data written in the PWC is copied to its target destination at a location identified by a target physical address. One way to reach the step  314  is by having started a write operation and then having had to stop it, i.e. partial write operation, and then are now resuming it, which would lead to the address of the last data stored in the PWC block not being that of the address of the information being written. During a write operation, data or information to be written to flash memory is collected in the buffer  240 . In the where a partial write operation is being performed, data is also collected in the PWC block. 
   Next, at step  316 , the data being written by the host is collected in the buffer memory  240  followed by a determination of a page boundary at  318 . If at  318 , it is determined that a page boundary is hit, the process continues to step  322  where data that is being written is, in its entirety, written to its target destination identified by the target physical address, as shown in  FIG. 4 . In the case where the process gets to step  322 , no partial write may have occurred in which case the write operation was contiguous during the writing of the entire page. 
   If at  318 , it is determined that a page boundary has not been encountered, then, the process continues to  320  where a determination is made as to whether or not a “STOP” command is received from the host and if not, the process continues to step  316 , otherwise, the process goes on to step  324  where data to be written by the host is copied or stored in the PWC block, as shown in  FIG. 5 . 
   If at  308 , it is determined that a page boundary is encountered, the process continues to  326  where a determination is made as to whether or not the data in the buffer memory  240  is a page in size, such as 2K bytes and if so, the process goes on to step  328  where information from the buffer memory  240 , written thereto by the host, is copied (or moved), in its entirety, to a target destination, identified by a target physical address, such as shown in  FIG. 6 . In the foregoing case, no partial write is performed because a page boundary is hit and the data buffer is filled with the entire page of information. The target destination in cases in  FIG. 2  is in the flash memory  204  as that is where the host intends to store information, as previously discussed. 
   If at  326 , it is determined that the information stored in the buffer memory  240  is not a page in size (or 2K bytes for example), a partial write has occurred (otherwise, the buffer memory would be full) and the process continues to step  330  where the current information stored in the PWC block  250  is copied along with the current information in the buffer memory  240  to the target destination, as identified by a target physical address and shown in  FIG. 7 . Current information refers to information, from the host, that has not yet been written or stored but need be stored and it is valid information as opposed to old or not current or defective information. Current or old information is identified by flags in the spare area. After step  330 , the process returns and continues at step  306 . 
     FIG. 3  shows an example of a block including 128 pages with each page having 2K bytes of data area and 64 bytes of spare area.  FIGS. 3(   a ) and  3 ( b ) show different structures, as examples, of a page of  FIG. 3 . The pages of the block are written thereto by the host in accordance with the embodiments and methods of the present invention. In  FIG. 3(   a ), a page is shown to include 4*512 bytes of data in a data area  352  and 4*16 bytes of spare in a spare area  354 . Each of the 512 bytes of data has a corresponding 16 byte spare located in the spare area  354 . Each 512 bytes of data and its corresponding spare are at times referred to as sector. Thus, in  FIG. 3(   a ), the four 512 bytes of data are sequentially located or located adjacent to each other and each of their corresponding spares are located after the data area  352  but also in sequential order. 
   In  FIG. 3(   b ), a page  360  is shown to include 4*(512 bytes+16 bytes) where each of the 512 bytes of data  362  are of data in a data area  352  and 4*16 bytes of spare in a spare area  354 . Each of the 512 bytes of data has a corresponding 16 byte spare located in the spare area  354 . Each 512 bytes of data  362  and its corresponding spare  364  are at times referred to as sector. In  FIG. 3(   b ) each of the data  362  and corresponding spare  364  are shown adjacent to each other and adjacent to the data-spare pair is located the next 512 bytes of data  364  and its corresponding spare  364 . 
     FIGS. 4-8  show examples of the contents of various memories corresponding to the various steps shown in  FIG. 2 . For example,  FIG. 4  shows a target physical address block  400 , which is included in the flash memory  204  of  FIG. 1 , and further show the buffer memory  240 . The block  400  is the block within which the information being provided by the host is to be written. The block  400  is shown to include 128 pages in the embodiment of  FIG. 4 , however, other number of pages may be included in the block  400 . One of the ways the status of the block  400  and the buffer memory  240  are as shown in  FIG. 4 , is by performance of the steps,  316 , and  322  in  FIG. 2 . As noted earlier, the block  400  includes 128 pages including a page N, which is where the information from the buffer memory  240  is copied thereto. The information stored in the buffer memory  240  is information collected at step  316  in  FIG. 2  and its data appears at the fourth 512 byte data area of page N and its spare appears at the last spare area of page N. The information stored in the first three 512 bytes of the data area of page N, in  FIG. 4 , and the first three 16 bytes of spare areas of page N are filled with 0xFF. The target address here refers to the address within the spare (or flag within the spare) of the corresponding page. The target address at step  314  is the address of the information stored within the PWC block. The target address at step  322  is the address of the information stored in the buffer  240 . Thus, the target address at step  314  is different than the target address at step  322 . The first three 512 bytes of the data of the four sections of the page N are either empty (filled with 0xFF) or filled with data from the buffer  240 . 
   In  FIGS. 4-8  different shadings of the pages indicate the status of the information. For example, in  FIG. 5 , the dark shading in Target Physical Address Block  400  indicates “current” or “used” or “old” information that can be valid or current. The dark shading in Partial Write Collector Block  250  indicates ‘used’ or ‘old’ or ‘garbage’ information, i.e. information that is no longer valid or current. Blank or white areas indicate no information or empty. The darker checkered areas indicate information that is current and just stored in the page N (from the buffer memory  240 ) and the lighter checkered shading indicates optionally filled. In  FIG. 4 , essentially, the page boundary was encountered and the current information is present in the buffer  240 , thus, some of the page N information comes from the buffer memory and some information is filled with 0xFF, as shown by the shadings. Indication of current information within the PWC block  250  is through the flags located in the corresponding spare area of a 512 byte data area. 
     FIG. 5  shows a target physical address block  400 , which is included in the flash memory  204  of  FIG. 1 , and further show the buffer memory  240  and the PWC block  250 . The block  400  is the block within which the information being provided by the host is to be written. The blocks  400  and  250  are each shown to include 128 pages in the embodiment of  FIG. 5 , however, other number of pages may be included therein. One of the ways the status of the block  400  and the buffer memory  240  and the block  250  are as shown in  FIG. 5 , is by performance of the step  324 . That is, a “STOP” command has been received by the flash memory system  200 , yet an entire page has not yet been written, as commanded by the host, thus, during the stop period, the information already written by the host, which now resides in the data buffer memory  240 , is written or copied to the page M of the block  250 . Since, so far, only some of the first three 512 byte data and their respective spares have been written by the host, only they are copied to corresponding locations in page M in the block  250 . The status of the page M in the block  250  may be any of the following: The first, second and third 512-byte sections of data of the page are filled with data from the buffer  240  and the fourth 512-byte data is don&#39;t care or it does not matter what it is; The first and second or second and third 512-byte sections of data of a page are filled with data and it does not matter what the remaining 512-byte sections of the page include; The first, second or third 512-byte sections of data of a page are filled with data and it does not matter what the remaining 512-byte sections of the page include; or The status of the 16-byte spare of the four sections of a page match the status of their corresponding data. 
     FIG. 6  shows a target physical address block  400 , which is included in the flash memory  204  of  FIG. 1 , and further shows the buffer memory  240 . The block  400  is the block within which the information being provided by the host is to be written. The block  400  is shown to include 128 pages in the embodiment of  FIG. 4 , however, other number of pages may be included in the block  400 . One of the ways the status of the block  400  and the buffer memory  240  are as shown in  FIG. 6 , is by performance of the step  330 . In the example of  FIG. 6 , as no partial write occurs, the information stored in the buffer memory  240 , which is an entire page of information, is copied to the block  400 . 
     FIG. 7  shows a target physical address block  400 , which is included in the flash memory  204  of  FIG. 1 , and further show the buffer memory  240  and the PWC block  250 . The block  400  is the block within which the information being provided by the host is to be written. The blocks  400  and  250  are each shown to include 128 pages in the embodiment of  FIG. 5 , however, other number of pages may be included therein. One of the ways the status of the block  400  and the buffer memory  240  and the block  250  are as shown in  FIG. 7 , is by performance of the step  330 , in  FIG. 2 . Pages  0 -(M−1) of the block  250  include garbage or old information, whereas, page M thereof includes current information, as denoted by respective flags of the 512 bytes of data in their spare. Since hit the 2K boundary, the 4 th  512 bytes information must come from the buffer memory. Since a page of information was not stored in its entirety in the buffer memory  240 , the first 512 bytes information must come from the PWC  250 . The remainder comes either from the block  250  or form the buffer memory  240 . It should be noted that in  FIGS. 4-8 , spare corresponding to a 512 byte data is stored accordingly although in alternative embodiments, spare corresponding to a 512 byte data can be stored in an area that does not readily show such correspondence in which case additional information is required to correlate a spare to its data. 
     FIG. 8  shows a target physical address block  400 , which is included in the flash memory  204  of  FIG. 1 , and further shows the buffer memory  240 . The block  400  is the block within which the information being provided by the host is to be written. The block  400  is shown to include 128 pages in the embodiment of  FIG. 4 , however, other number of pages may be included in the block  400 . One of the ways the status of the block  400  and the buffer memory  240  are as shown in  FIG. 8 , is by performance of the step  312 . In this case, information from page M−1 of the block  250  is copied to page M thereof but only as to information that was not collected in the buffer memory  240 , and as a page boundary was not encountered, therefore a page worth of information was not stored in the buffer memory  240 , the remainder of the page information comes either from the buffer memory  240 , to the extent it was collected or from the block  250 . 
   The block  250  may include more than one block of information. 
   Although the present invention has been described in terms of specific embodiments it is anticipated that alterations and modifications thereof will no doubt become apparent to those skilled in the art. It is therefore intended that the following claims be interpreted as covering all such alterations and modification as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.