Managing flash memory in personal communication devices

Abstract

This paper describes a flash memory server (FMS) for personal communication devices and embedded home information systems, such as set-top boxes and Internet phones. Flash memory is small, lightweight, shock-resistant, nonvolatile, and requires little power. Writing to flash memory segments requires erasing the segment in advance. However, erase operations are slow and power-wasting and usually decrease system performance. The number of erase cycles is also limited. To reduce the number of erase operations needed and to evenly wear the flash memory, a new flash memory management scheme has been designed. A new cleaning policy is also proposed to reduce cleaning overhead. Performance evaluations show that erase operations can be reduced by 55%.