A low-cost memory architecture with NAND XIP for mobile embedded systems

Abstract

NAND flash memory has become an indispensable component in mobile embedded systems because of its versatile features such as non-volatility, solid-state reliability, low cost and high density. Even though NAND flash memory is gaining popularity as data storage, it can be also exploited as code memory for XIP (execute-in-place). In this paper, we present a new memory architecture which incorporates NAND flash memory into an existing memory hierarchy for code execution. The usefulness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with real embedded workloads on a real prototyping board.