Patent Publication Number: US-11030061-B2

Title: Single and double chip spare

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     Computing devices may suffer from any number of different types of failures. One particular type of failure is failure in the memory chips that make up the memory system. Failures of individual memory chips may reduce the amount of memory available to the system. As memory chips are generally not individually serviceable, replacement of a failed memory chip may require the complete replacement of a memory module that may contain many non-failed chips. Furthermore, memory is typically not serviceable while the computer is operational and thus may require downtime to carry out the replacement of the failed memory modules. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  depicts a block diagram of an example of a memory system. 
         FIG. 2  depicts another block diagram of an example of a memory system with a chip failure. 
         FIGS. 3 ( a - b ) depict additional examples of a memory system with chip failures. 
         FIGS. 4 ( a - c ) depict an example of a memory system with multiple chip failures. 
         FIG. 5  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. 
         FIG. 6  depicts another example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. 
         FIG. 7  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. 
         FIG. 8  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from multiple chip failures. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Memory failures in computing systems may lead to unplanned system downtime, due to the need to replace faulty memory components. Unplanned downtime in today&#39;s computing environment, in which high availability of computing systems is expected, may be intolerable. Problems due to memory failure may be further exacerbated when the failures occur in server systems, as many different users may be impacted by system downtime. In addition, many organizations rely on continuous availability of applications running on their computers in order to achieve the organization&#39;s goals. Unplanned downtime due to memory failure can be detrimental to those goals. 
     To mitigate the effects of failure of memory, several techniques are available. One such technique may be referred to as Single Chip Spare (SCS). In SCS systems, a memory controller may store cache lines in the memory such that failure of any single memory chip does not result in the cache line becoming unusable. For example, the cache lines may be stored in memory with the protection of an Error Correction Code (ECC). An ECC that is capable of detecting and correcting a failure of a single chip may be chosen from a number of available error correction codes. Upon a failure of a chip in a memory, the ECC may be used to ensure that the cache lines are still usable. 
     An SCS system is able to continue running even in the presence of a failure of a single memory chip within an ECC codeword. Furthermore, SCS systems are able to utilize the bandwidth between the memory and the memory controller in a highly efficient manner. However, SCS systems suffer from the inherent problem that they can only recover from a single chip failure within an ECC codeword. Failure of a second memory chip within the codeword may, at minimum, result in the need for system downtime to replace the faulty memory. 
     Another technique that may be used to mitigate failures in memory may be referred to as Double Chip Spare (DCS). In DCS, cache lines are again stored in memory with the protection of one of many known error correction codes that are capable of detecting and correcting for up to two memory chip failures within each ECC codeword. Error correction codes that are capable of correcting faults in two error chips typically distribute a cache line across a larger number of chips, in comparison to SCS, to reduce the number of bits that are corrupted when a chip fails. For example, a cache line may be distributed between chips contained on two separate memory busses or between chips on a single bus but spread between addresses on a single bus such that any error of two chips storing the cache line does not make the line unusable. The cache line distribution can occur between memory modules on different buses, different memory modules on the same bus, or different ranks on the same memory module. 
     DCS has the advantage of being able to survive failures in two memory chips within an ECC codeword before requiring downtime for repair. Thus, a first failure may occur, and the system may continue to operate. Even when a second failure occurs, the system continues to operate. Thus, a system administrator may be given a wider window of opportunity to address a memory failure during a planned maintenance period, as compared to SCS. The failure of the first memory chip does not result in a situation where the next failure may cause the system to be unusable. Maintenance may not be needed until the failure of a second chip, which may not occur until a considerable amount of time after the first chip failure. 
     However, the increased protection offered by DCS comes at a price. As mentioned, DCS operates by storing cache lines across multiple busses or multiple distinct ranges of memory addresses within a single bus. The need to access multiple busses or address ranges results in inefficiencies in the transfer of data from the memory to the memory controller, as extra cycles are needed to configure reading from/writing to different busses or different ranges on a single bus. As much as 40% of the bus bandwidth may be lost in order to gain the protection of DCS. The loss of bus bandwidth occurs even if there has not yet been a failure of any memory chip. 
     Techniques provided herein overcome the problems created by SCS and DCS, while at the same time retaining the advantages provided by those two mechanisms. A memory may initially operate in SCS mode, providing the the benefits, such as full bus utilization, described above. When a failure in a single chip in memory occurs, the portion of the memory affected by the failure may be converted to DCS mode. Portions of memory that are not affected remain operating in SCS mode. Thus, full bandwidth is maintained for those portions of memory that are not affected by the failure of the memory chip, maintaining the advantages of SCS to the extent possible. Likewise, for the portion of the memory that contains a faulty memory chip, the conversion to DCS retains the advantage that the next failure of a memory chip is not critical, as a failure of an additional memory chip can be accommodated. The techniques above are described in further detail below and in conjunction with the attached figures. 
       FIG. 1  depicts a block diagram of an example of a memory system. The system may include a memory controller  110 , memories  115 - 0 ,  115 - 1 , and busses  120 - 0 ,  120 - 1  which connect the memory controller to the memories. Memory controller may receive requests  125  to read/write cache lines in the memory from external sources. For example, memory requests may come from sources such as processors, direct memory access controllers, or other such devices. 
     The memory controller may typically be implemented in hardware. Due to the processing speed requirements needed in today&#39;s computing environment, the memory controller may generally be implemented as an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or may be included as part of a larger device, such as a processor. The memory controller may contain memory, general purpose processors, and dedicated control logic. In addition, the memory controller may execute software or firmware to aid in providing the functionality described herein. The various functions that are described may be implemented using any combination of the memory, processors, software, firmware, and logic as needed. 
     The memory controller  110  may access the memory  115  over one or more busses. Upon receiving a memory request, the memory controller may access the memory in order to service the request. For example, in the case of a request to read a cache line from memory, the memory controller may retrieve the cache line from the memory over the bus, compute the appropriate ECC based on the mode of operation, compare the computed ECC and ECC retrieved with the cache line, correct any errors to the extent possible given the type of ECC, and provide the cache line to the requestor. In the case of a request to write to memory, the memory controller may receive a request to write a cache line, compute an appropriate ECC, and store the cache line in the memory. 
     In the description above, reference was made to an appropriate ECC. As was mentioned above, error correction codes are available for both SCS and DCS. Cache lines may be stored in ether SCS mode  130 - 0 , 1  or DCS mode  135  in the memory. When reading or writing cache lines, the memory controller may select the proper ECC to use based on if the cache line is contained in a SCS or DCS portion of the memory. Thus, the memory controller is able to access some portions of the memory in SCS mode and other portions of the memory in DCS mode. In addition, upon failure of a chip in the SCS portion of memory, the memory controller may convert a region of memory from SCS mode to DCS mode. Access of the memory in SCS and DCS mode, along with conversion from one mode to the other, is described in further detail below. 
       FIG. 2  depicts another block diagram of an example of a memory system with a chip failure. In a typical memory system, cache lines containing sixty four bytes of data  205  may be used. A cache half line, as the name implies, is half of a complete cache line. For example, as shown the sixty four byte cache line  283  may be made up of half cache lines  283 - a,b . For purposes of the remainder of this disclosure, references to a cache line by number only indicate the full cache line, while references to the number and a letter indicate reference to a single half cache line. 
     The cache half lines may be stored in a memory  215 - 0 , 1 . An example of a typical chip layout of a memory using eighteen ×4 Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips  208  is shown. In such an implementation, sixteen of the memory chips may be used to store data while two of the memory chips are used to store an ECC. Given a total of eighteen chips, there are many known single chip error correction codes that can detect and correct a failure in a single chip. 
     Cache lines  280 - 283  may be stored in memory  215 - 0 . Cache lines  280 - 283  may be protected by any available ECC that is able to detect and correct a single chip error. Cache lines  280 - 283  may form a first SCS region  230 - 0 . Likewise, cache lines  290 - 293  may be stored in memory  215 - 1 . Cache lines  290 - 293  may also be protected by a single chip spare ECC and form a second SCS region  230 - 1 . Each of these sets of cache lines is operating in single chip spare mode, as failure of any single chip in these regions does not render the cache lines stored therein unusable. The two SCS regions  230 - 0 , 1  are independent of each other. 
     Double chip spare region  235  is an example of a region that is protected by an ECC that is capable of detecting and correcting failures in up to two chips. This DCS region comprises cache lines within two address ranges:  240 - 241  and  250 - 251 . As shown, each cache line is spread across two memory busses. For example, cache half lines ( 240 , 250 , 241 , 251 )- a  are stored in memory  215 - 0 , while cache half lines ( 240 , 250 , 241 , 251 )- b  are stored in memory  215 - 1 . Thus, a given cache line in a DCS region is stored across a total of thirty six chips, with thirty two chips used for data and four chips used to store an ECC. Given this number of chips, error correction codes that are able to detect and correct for failures of up to two chips are available. Cache lines  240 - 241  and  250 - 251  are protected by such an ECC. 
     When a single chip in an SCS region fails, the region may be converted from SCS mode to DCS mode, thus protecting the cache lines in the region from a subsequent chip failure. When a single chip in an SCS region fails, a DCS base  236 - 0  may be determined. In addition, a DCS limit  238 - 0  may be determined. Selection of the DCS base and limit will be described in further detail below, but for now, the DCS base and limit determine the beginning end end of the SCS region of memory that will be converted to DCS. For purposes of this description, assume that there has been a failure of a single chip within memory  215 - 0  on bus  220 - 0 , and that failure affects the region between the DCS base  236 - 0  and the DCS limit  238 - 0  and will be referred to as the first region. 
     A second region may be selected that is equal in size to the region containing the failure. The second region may also be identified by a DCS base  236 - 1  and a DCS limit  238 - 1 . In one example, the second region may be the identical address range of the first region, except for being on a different bus  220 - 1 . However, this specific arrangement is not required. Examples of additional possibilities are described with respect to  FIGS. 3 ( a - b ). The two sets of DCS base and DCS limit addresses together define the DCS region. 
     Conversion pointers  237 - 0 , 1  may be set to point to the DCS bases  236 - 0 , 1  respectively. The conversion pointers may advance from the DCS bases to the DCS limits, converting cache lines from SCS mode to DCS mode as they advance. The process of converting cache lines may be best explained though the use of an example. As shown, the conversion pointer  237 - 0  currently points to cache line  262 . The corresponding conversion pointer  237 - 1  currently points to cache line  272 . The memory controller  210  may swap one half of each cache line between the first and second region. For example, as shown, cache half line  272 - a  may be swapped with cache half line  262 - b  using the following procedure. Cache lines  252  and  272  are each read from memory and corrected using their corresponding SCS ECC, if needed. A DCS ECC is then calculated for each cache line. The resulting cache lines are then written back to memory. When the cache lines are written back to memory, they are distributed across the first and second regions. The conversion pointers may then be advanced by one cache line. The end result of this swap being that cache lines  262 ,  272  are now spread across both regions of memory. The process may repeat until the conversion pointers point to the DCS conversion limits. An example of cache lines that have already been swapped are cache lines  260 ,  261 ,  270 ,  271 . Cache lines that are waiting to be converted are lines  263 ,  273 . 
     In the process of swapping the cache lines described above, a new error correction code was computed. However, because the cache lines are now spread across an increased number of chips, a DCS error correction code may be used. Once the conversion of a pair of cache lines to DCS mode is complete, the cache lines are then able to withstand the failure of any additional chip. 
     While the conversion is in process, any memory access requests to bus addresses that are above the DCS bases, but below the DCS conversion pointers will be processed as access requests to a DCS region. Likewise, any memory access requests to bus addresses that are above the conversion pointers, but below the DCS limits will be processed as access requests to a SCS region. A memory request to a bus address that is pointed to by the conversion pointers, meaning that the address is in the process of being converted, will stall and will be retried at a later time. By the time the request is retried, the conversion will have likely completed. If the conversion has not completed, the request will continue to stall until such time as the conversion of the bus address is complete. 
     The DCS bases and limits were briefly mentioned above. The DCS bases and limits determine the extent of the regions that will be converted from SCS mode to DCS mode. As mentioned above, the use of DCS is not without penalty. In particular, DCS regions suffer from reduced bandwidth utilization due to the need to reconfigure the memory controller to access locations on different busses. As such it is desirable to limit the size of the region being converted to DCS to minimize the impacts of reduced bus utilization. 
     The techniques described herein select a size of the conversion region based on the extent of the memory chip failure. For example, an individual memory chip may contain individual banks that can fail independently. In the case of a failure of a single bank within a single chip, the first region may be selected to encompass only that bank. If multiple consecutive banks fail, the first region may include multiple banks. If the entire chip fails, the first region may include the entire chip. What should be understood is that the first region may be selected to be as small as possible while still covering all memory locations that are impacted by the failure. 
       FIG. 2  was presented in terms of an example implementation of a memory system typically used in computing systems, however it should be understood that the techniques described herein are not limited to any particular chip configuration, cache line size, or number of busses. 
       FIGS. 3 ( a - b ) depict additional examples of a memory system with chip failures. In the description of  FIG. 2 , it was assumed that conversion of two SCS regions to a DCS region was between memories located on two separate busses, and that both SCS regions are at the same relative memory addresses on their bus. However, the techniques described herein are not limited to such configurations, and may be used with any number of other configurations. What should be understood is that any configuration of memories, busses, and addresses may be used, as long as an additional chip failure will not affect the ability of the ECC to correct for an error. In general terms, any memory configuration in which a cache line is re-distributed over a collection of memory chips to increase the number of detectable and/or correctable memory chip errors is acceptable. 
       FIG. 3( a )  depicts an example of a double chip spare region  335  that is contained in memory  315 - 0  on a single memory bus  320 - 0 . As shown, cache half lines ( 360 ,  370 ,  361 , 371 )- a  are stored in one range of bus addresses. Cache half lines ( 360 ,  370 ,  361 ,  371 )- b  are stored in a different range of bus addresses. The configuration shown in  FIG. 3( a )  is usable with the techniques described herein, so long as any memory chip failure will not affect both halves of the cache line. The reason the configuration is valid is that when operating in DCS mode in accordance with the techniques described, the cache line has already experienced an error in one chip which affects only one half of the cache line. If an additional chip fails, the failure will also only affect one half of the cache line. Thus, the entire cache line will experience, at most, two chip failures, which can be corrected by the memory controller  310  when using DCS error correction codes. 
       FIG. 3( b )  depicts another example of a double chip spare region  335  that is contained in memory  315 - 0 , 1  on two memory busses  320 - 0 , 1 , but the addresses on those busses are not the same. As shown, cache half lines ( 380 ,  390 ,  381 ,  391 )- a  are stored in memory on one bus. Cache half lines ( 380 ,  390 ,  381 ,  391 )- b  are stored in memory on a different bus. As should be clear, any additional chip failure will affect at most one half of a cache line, as the cache line halves stored in chips on different busses are independent of each other. Furthermore, it is not necessary for the bus address ranges to be the same, as was described with respect to  FIG. 2 . The memory controller  310  may store the address ranges that form the DCS region. Thus, when a memory request is received, the proper bus addresses may be accessed to provide the complete cache line. 
       FIGS. 4 ( a - c ) depict an example of a memory system with multiple chip failures. As mentioned above, the techniques described herein allow for up to two memory chip failures before repairs are needed. However, in some circumstances, it may be possible to reconfigure the DCS regions such that additional chip failures may occur and yet still allow the system to remain operational. 
       FIG. 4( a )  depicts a system in which a region of memory has been converted to operate in DCS mode in accordance to the techniques presented above. As shown, cache half lines ( 460 ,  470 ,  461 ,  471 )- a  are stored in memory on one bus  420 - 0  and cache half lines ( 460 ,  470 ,  461 ,  471 )- b  are stored in memory on a different bus  420 - 1 . For purposes of this description, assume that there has only been one chip failure so far, thus the protection provided by DCS is still available. In other words, assume that there is only a failure of a single chip on a single bus and the memory controller  410  can correct the error using the DCS ECC. 
     At some point in time, there may be a second chip failure. In cases where the second chip failure occurs on the bus opposite the one that contains the first chip failure, the DCS region may be converted back to two SCS regions, since the ECC for the two SCS regions will be sufficient to correct errors caused by the two failed chips. Each of the two SCS regions may now be converted into a separate DCS region using another error-free SCS region, thus extending the period of DCS protection. 
     As shown in  FIG. 4( b ) , assume that there is a failure of a single chip on bus  420 - 0  and a single chip on bus  420 - 1 . The process of converting the region to DCS could then be executed in reverse, resulting in two SCS regions. As shown, cache half lines are swapped such that both halves of a cache line are contained in a single SCS region. As shown, cache lines  460 , 481  are now contained in a first SCS region, while cache lines  470 , 471  are contained in a second SCS region, it should be understood that each of the SCS regions now has a single chip failure, and as such failure of an additional chip may cause the cache lines to become unusable. 
     However, if another region can be found that does not contain any chip errors, the process of converting the SCS regions back to DCS regions can occur again. As shown in  FIG. 4( c )  a third error free region, containing cache lines  480 , 481  may be identified. The cache half lines that made up cache lines  480 ,  481  may be exchanged with the cache half lines that made up cache lines  470 ,  471  in accordance with the procedure described above to form a new DCS region. Likewise, a fourth error free region, originally containing cache lines  490 ,  491  may be identified. Again, the procedure described above to swap cache lines between the region originally containing cache lines  460 ,  461  and the region containing cache lines  490 ,  491  may be executed. The result is a new double chip spare region, as shown by the dashed lines. 
     The process of converting a DCS region back into two SCS regions, and then reconverting back into a DCS region may continue so long as error free regions can be found. As such, the amount of time needed before repairs are required due to memory failures can be extended until it is no longer possible to find an error tree SCS region, assuming that a cache halt line is never affected by more than one chip failure. 
       FIG. 5  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. In block  510  a single chip error in a first region of memory that is operating in single chip spare mode is detected. Such an error may be detected by the memory controller through the use of error correction codes. In block  520  a second region of memory equal in size to the first region of memory is selected. The second region of memory may also operate in single chip spare mode. In some cases, the second region of memory may be the same range of memory addresses on a different bus. In other cases, the second region of memory may be a different range of memory addresses, either on the same or a different bus. In block  530  the first and second regions of memory may be converted from single chip spare mode to double chip spare mode. 
       FIG. 6  depicts another example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. In block  605  a single chip error in a first region of memory that is operating in single chip spare mode is detected. In block  610  a first double chip spare base is determined. The first double ship spare base identifies the beginning of the first region of memory. In block  615  a first double chip spare limit is determined. The first double chip spare limit identifies the end of the first region of memory. 
     In block  620  a second region of memory equal in size to the first region of memory is selected. The second region of memory operates in the single chip spare mode. The second region of memory may be identified by a second double chip spare base and a second double chip spare limit. In block  625 , conversion pointers are set to the first and second double chip spare bases. In block  630  the two cache lines pointed to by the conversion pointers are read and any errors are corrected using a single chip spare error correction code. In block  635  a double chip spare error correction code is computed for cache lines in the first and second regions of memory. For example, the two cache lines may be read and any necessary correction performed using the SCS ECC. A new DCS ECC may then be computed for each cache line. The cache lines and newly computed DCS EGG are stored, as described below. 
     In block  640  the cache lines and the computed error correction codes are stored into the first and second regions of memory. The cache lines and computed error correction codes span the first and second region of memory. In block  645  the conversion pointers are advanced to the next cache lines. In block  650  it is determined if the conversion pointers equal the double chip spare limits. If not, the process returns to block  630 . Otherwise, the process moves to block  655 , in which the conversion is complete. 
     It should be noted that cache lines may continue to be accessed while the conversion is in progress. The cache lines are accessed based on the double chip spare bases, limits, and conversion pointers. As explained above, cache lines above the conversion pointer are accessed in SCS mode, those below are accessed in DCS mode, and if equal, access requests are stalled. 
       FIG. 7  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from a chip failure. In block  710  an error in a portion of a memory operating in a single chip spare mode is detected. The error may be detected through the use of error correcting codes. In block  720  a first region of the memory that fully covers the error may be determined. For example, the error may be on a single bank of a memory chip, resulting in the size of the bank being the size of the region. As another example, the error may be on the entire chip. In block  730  the first region is converted to operate in double chip spare mode. 
       FIG. 8  depicts an example flow diagram of recovering from multiple chip failures. In block  805  an error is detected in a portion of a memory operating in single chip spare mode. In block  810  a first region of the memory that is affected by the error is determined. In block  815  a second region of memory equal in size to the first region is determined. The second region of memory contains no errors and is operating in the single chip spare mode. 
     In block  820  a double chip spare error correction code is calculated for each cache line in the first and second regions. For example, each cache line may be read and any necessary correction performed using the SCS ECC. A DCS ECC may then be calculated for each cache line. In block  825  each cache line and calculated error correction code is stored in a combined region. The combined region comprises the first and second regions. In block  830  a second single chip error in the combined region is detected. The second error occurs in the second region. In block  835  the combined region is converted back into the first memory region and the second memory region. The first and second memory regions operate in the single chip spare mode. 
     In block  840  a third region of memory equal in size to the first region, containing no errors, and operating in the single chip spare mode is determined. In block  845  a double chip spare error correction code for each cache line in the first and third regions is calculated. Again, each cache line may be read and any necessary correction performed using the SCS ECC. A DCS ECC may then be calculated for each cache line. In block  850  each cache line and calculated error correction code is stored in a combined region that comprises the first and third regions. 
     In block  855  a fourth region of memory equal in size to the second region, containing no errors, and operating in the single chip spare mode is determined. In block  860  a double chip spare error correction code for each cache line in the second and fourth regions is calculated. Again, each cache line may be read and any necessary correction performed using the SCS ECC. A DCS ECC may then be calculated for each cache line. In block  865  each cache line and calculated error correction code is stored in a combined region that comprises the second and fourth regions.