Algorithms and Data Representations for Emerging Non-Volatile Memories

The evolution of data storage technologies has been extraordinary. Hard disk drives that fit in current personal computers have the capacity that requires tons of transistors to achieve in 1970s. Today, we are at the beginning of the era of non-volatile memory (NVM). NVMs provide excellent performance such as random access, high I/O speed, low power consumption, and so on. The storage density of NVMs keeps increasing following Moore’s law. However, higher storage density also brings significant data reliability issues. When chip geometries scale down, memory cells (e.g. transistors) are aligned much closer to each other, and noise in the devices will become no longer negligible. Consequently, data will be more prone to errors and devices will have much shorter longevity. This dissertation focuses on mitigating the reliability and the endurance issues for two major NVMs, namely, NAND flash memory and phase-change memory (PCM). Our main research tools include a set of coding techniques for the communication channels implied by flash memory and PCM. To approach the problems, at bit level we design error correcting codes tailored for the asymmetric errors in flash and PCM, we propose joint coding scheme for endurance and reliability, error scrubbing methods for controlling storage channel quality, and study codes that are inherently resisting to typical errors in flash and PCM; at higher levels, we are interested in analyzing the structures and the meanings of the stored data, and propose methods that pass such metadata to help further improve the coding performance at bit level. The highlights of this dissertation include the first set of write-once memory code constructions which correct a significant number of errors, a practical framework which corrects errors utilizing the redundancies in texts, the first report of the performance of polar codes for flash memories, and the emulation of rank modulation codes in NAND flash chips

Exploration of Mutli-Threshold Ferro-Electric FET Based Designs

The surge in data intensive applications has given rise to demand for high density storage devices and their efficient implementations. Consequently, Multi-level-cell(MLC) memories are getting explored for their promising aspects of higher storage density and lower unit storage cost. However, the multi-bit data stored in these memories need to be converted to processor compatible forms (typically binary) for processing. In this work, we have proposed an adaptable multi-level voltage to binary converter using Ferro-electric Field Effect Transistors(FeFET) capable of translating input voltage to bits. The use of FeFETs as voltage comparators simplifies the circuit and offers adaptable voltage quantization, flexible output bit-width(1/2 bits) and security feature. The circuit also employs incremental output encoding, which limits error margin to the least significant bits(LSB). The proposed 4-level to 2-bit converter circuit is demonstrated in simulation to have an input voltage range of [0 ? 3.75V] / [0 ? 2.7V] for FeFETs with 20/2000-domains respectively

Towards Endurable, Reliable and Secure Flash Memories-a Coding Theory Application

Storage systems are experiencing a historical paradigm shift from hard disk to nonvolatile memories due to its advantages such as higher density, smaller size and non-volatility. On the other hand, Solid Storage Disk (SSD) also poses critical challenges to application and system designers. The first challenge is called endurance. Endurance means flash memory can only experience a limited number of program/erase cycles, and after that the cell quality degradation can no longer be accommodated by the memory system fault tolerance capacity. The second challenge is called reliability, which means flash cells are sensitive to various noise and disturbs, i.e., data may change unintentionally after experiencing noise/disturbs. The third challenge is called security, which means it is impossible or costly to delete files from flash memory securely without leaking information to possible eavesdroppers. In this dissertation, we first study noise modeling and capacity analysis for NAND flash memories (which is the most popular flash memory in market), which gains us some insight on how flash memories are working and their unique noise. Second, based on the characteristics of content-replication codewords in flash memories, we propose a joint decoder to enhance the flash memory reliability. Third, we explore data representation schemes in flash memories and optimal rewriting code constructions in order to solve the endurance problem. Fourth, in order to make our rewriting code more practical, we study noisy write-efficient memories and Write-Once Memory (WOM) codes against inter-cell interference in NAND memories. Finally, motivated by the secure deletion problem in flash memories, we study coding schemes to solve both the endurance and the security issues in flash memories. This work presents a series of information theory and coding theory research studies on the aforesaid three critical issues, and shows that how coding theory can be utilized to address these challenges

저밀도 부호의 응용: 묶음 지그재그 파운틴 부호와 WOM 부호

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 전기·컴퓨터공학부, 2017. 2. 노종선.This dissertation contains the following two contributions on the applications of sparse codes. Fountain codes Batched zigzag (BZ) fountain codes – Two-phase batched zigzag (TBZ) fountain codes Write-once memory (WOM) codes – WOM codes implemented by rate-compatible low-density generator matrix (RC-LDGM) codes First, two classes of fountain codes, called batched zigzag fountain codes and two-phase batched zigzag fountain codes, are proposed for the symbol erasure channel. At a cost of slightly lengthened code symbols, the involved message symbols in each batch of the proposed codes can be recovered by low complexity zigzag decoding algorithm. Thus, the proposed codes have low buffer occupancy during decoding process. These features are suitable for receivers with limited hardware resources in the broadcasting channel. A method to obtain degree distributions of code symbols for the proposed codes via ripple size evolution is also proposed by taking into account the released code symbols from the batches. It is shown that the proposed codes outperform Luby transform codes and zigzag decodable fountain codes with respect to intermediate recovery rate and coding overhead when message length is short, symbol erasure rate is low, and available buffer size is limited. In the second part of this dissertation, WOM codes constructed by sparse codes are presented. Recently, WOM codes are adopted to NAND flash-based solid-state drive (SSD) in order to extend the lifetime by reducing the number of erasure operations. Here, a new rewriting scheme for the SSD is proposed, which is implemented by multiple binary erasure quantization (BEQ) codes. The corresponding BEQ codes are constructed by RC-LDGM codes. Moreover, by putting RC-LDGM codes together with a page selection method, writing efficiency can be improved. It is verified via simulation that the SSD with proposed rewriting scheme outperforms the SSD without and with the conventional WOM codes for single level cell (SLC) and multi-level cell (MLC) flash memories.1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Overview of Dissertation 5 2 Sparse Codes 7 2.1 Linear Block Codes 7 2.2 LDPC Codes 9 2.3 Message Passing Decoder 11 3 New Fountain Codes with Improved Intermediate Recovery Based on Batched Zigzag Coding 13 3.1 Preliminaries 17 3.1.1 Definitions and Notation 17 3.1.2 LT Codes 18 3.1.3 Zigzag Decodable Codes 20 3.1.4 Bit-Level Overhead 22 3.2 New Fountain Codes Based on Batched Zigzag Coding 23 3.2.1 Construction of Shift Matrix 24 3.2.2 Encoding and Decoding of the Proposed BZ Fountain Codes 25 3.2.3 Storage and Computational Complexity 28 3.3 Degree Distribution of BZ Fountain Codes 31 3.3.1 Relation Between $\Psi(x)$ and $\Omega(x)$ 31 3.3.2 Derivation of $\Omega(x)$ via Ripple Size Evolution 32 3.4 Two-Phase Batched Zigzag Fountain Codes with Additional Memory 40 3.4.1 Code Construction 41 3.4.2 Bit-Level Overhead 46 3.5 Numerical Analysis 49 4 Write-Once Memory Codes Using Rate-Compatible LDGM Codes 60 4.1 Preliminaries 62 4.1.1 NAND Flash Memory 62 4.1.2 Rewriting Schemes for Flash Memory 62 4.1.3 Construction of Rewriting Codes by BEQ Codes 65 4.2 Proposed Rewriting Codes 67 4.2.1 System Model 67 4.2.2 Multi-rate Rewriting Codes 68 4.2.3 Page Selection for Rewriting 70 4.3 RC-LDGM Codes 74 4.4 Numerical Analysis 76 5 Conclusions 80 Bibliography 82 초록 94Docto

A DATA AWARE APPROACH TO SALVAGE THE ENDURANCE OF PHASE-CHANGE MEMORY

Phase Change Memory (PCM) is an emerging non-volatile memory technology that could either replace or augment DRAM and NAND flash that are hindered by scalability challenges. PCM suffers from a limited endurance problem that needs to be alleviated before it can be endorsed into the memory stack. This thesis is based on the observation that the endurance problem and its ramification depend on the write data. Accordingly, a data-aware approach is applied to salvage the endurance of PCM at three different stages: pre-write fault avoidance, post-write fault tolerance and post-failure recovery. The pre-write fault avoidance stage aims at reducing the endurance cost of servicing write requests. To this end, Cost Aware Flip Optimization (CAFO) is presented as an efficient technique to lessen the endurance degradation. Essentially, CAFO relies on a cost model that captures the endurance cost of programming memory cells based on their already stored values. Subsequently,the write data is encoded into a form that incurs a lower endurance cost than the original write data. Overall, CAFO is capable of reducing the endurance cost by up to 65% more than the existing schemes. Worn out PCM cells exhibit a stuck-at fault model which makes the manifestation of errors dependent on the values that cells are stuck at. When a write fails, the data is rewritten inverted. This dissertation shows that applying data inversion at the post-write fault tolerance stage exploits the data dependent nature of errors which enables ECCs to tolerate faults up to double their nominal capability. Furthermore, extensions to RDIS which is an ECC designed specifically for the stuck-at fault model are presented. At the post-failure recovery stage, Data Dependent Sparing is presented to manage bad blocks in PCM. Departing from the observation that defective blocks in the context of the stuck-at fault model still exhibit a low write failure probability due to the data dependent nature of errors, this thesis takes the approach of reusing blocks that are defective yet better-than-bad through a dynamic management of the reserve spare space. Data Dependent Sparing is capable of increasing the lifetime of PCM by up to 18%