Characterization and error-correcting codes for TLC flash memories

Abstract

Flash memory has become the storage medium of choice in portable consumer electronic applications, and high performance solid state drives (SSDs) are also being introduced into mobile computing, enterprise storage, data warehousing, and data-intensive computing systems. On the other hand, flash memory technologies present major challenges in the areas of device reliability, endurance, and energy efficiency. In this work, the error behavior of TLC flash is studied through an empirical database of errors which were induced by write, read, and erase operations. Based on this database, error characterization at the block and page level is given. To address the observed error behavior, a new error-correcting scheme for TLC flash is given and is compared with BCH and LDPC codes.