CAREER: Information Storage in Flash Memories: From Devices to Networks

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract: Flash memories have become by far the most widely used type of electronic non-volatile memories. To fundamentally push the performance of flash memories toward their limit, a new coding theory for data storage is needed. The main challenges facing flash memories include low efficiency in writing, data reliability and limited memory longevity. This research studies novel information theoretic approaches to substantially increase the writing speed, power efficiency, reliability and longevity of flash memories. The new storage schemes can be used by numerous mobile devices, embedded systems and mass storage systems. This research explores new coding theories for data storage in flash memories. A new family of codes called floating codes, which jointly encode data and minimize block erasure operations, are developed to improve the speed, power efficiency and longevity of flash memories. Error-correcting codes and interleaving schemes are designed to correct characteristic errors in flash memories. The coding schemes are further extended to the usage of continuous cell levels for optimal performance. New storage schemes and algorithms are studied for data storage applications in flash disks, databases and sensor networks, three highly representative and important applications of flash memories respectively at the device, system and network level. In those applications, codes are designed to support page-based writing, data aggregation and in-network distributed storage.