Non-standard sector size system support for SSD testing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11237202-B2
Application number	US-201916351371-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 12, 2019
Priority date	Mar 12, 2019
Publication date	Feb 1, 2022
Grant date	Feb 1, 2022

Abstract

Non-standard sector size system support for SSD testing. An automated test equipment for simultaneous testing of multiple solid state drives (SSDs), wherein the SSD has a sector size that is not an integral power of two, includes a tester block configured to receive a command to read and verify an amount of data from the SSD starting at a starting address. The starting address is not constrained to correspond to a sector boundary and the amount of data is not constrained to be an integral multiple of the SSD data sector size. The test equipment also includes logic within said tester block configured to determine a starting sector of the SSD that the starting address points to, and logic within said tester block configured to determine a number of sectors required for the amount of data to be read. The tester block is configured to read a sector from the SSD. The test equipment further includes a pattern generator configured to generate a pseudo-random sequence of data based on a sector number of the SSD, and logic configured to compare the data read from the SSD to the pseudo-random sequence of data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for simultaneous testing of multiple solid state drives (SSDs), wherein the SSD has a sector size that is not an integral power of two, the system comprising:
a tester block configured to receive a command to write an amount of data to the SSD starting at a starting address,
wherein the starting address is not constrained to correspond to a sector boundary and the amount of data is not constrained to be an integral multiple of the SSD data sector size;
logic within said tester block configured to determine a starting sector of the SSD corresponding to the starting address;
logic within said tester block configured to determine a number of sectors required to accommodate the amount of data;
a pattern generator configured to generate a pseudo-random sequence of data based on a sector number of the SSD written; and
wherein the tester block is also configured to write the pseudo-random sequence of data to the SSD.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein a data written to the SSD is not stored outside of the SSD after being written to the SSD.

3. The system of claim 1 further configured to generate a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) for a sector's pseudo-random sequence of data.

4. The system of claim 3 further configured to send the CRC to the SSD.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the pattern generator is further configured a meta data pseudo-random sequence of data based on a sector number of the SSD written.

6. The system of claim 5 further configured to write the meta data pseudo-random sequence of data to the SSD, corresponding to a meta data field of the sector.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the sector size of the SSD is selected from the set comprising 512, 520, 528, 4096, 4104, 4112, 4160, and 4224 bytes.

8. An automated test equipment (ATE) for simultaneous testing of multiple solid state drives (SSDs), wherein the SSD has a sector size that is not an integral power of two, the ATE comprising:
a tester block configured to receive a command to read and verify an amount of data to the SSD starting at a starting address,
wherein the starting address is not constrained to correspond to a sector boundary and the amount of data is not constrained to be an integral multiple of a the SSD data sector size;
logic within said tester block configured to determine a starting sector of the SSD that corresponds to the starting address;
logic within said tester block configured to determine a number of sectors required to accommodate the amount of data to be read;
wherein the tester block is also configured to read a sector from the SSD;
a pattern generator configured to generate a pseudo-random sequence of data based on a sector number of the SSD; and
logic configured to compare the data read from the SSD to the pseudo-random sequence of data.

9. The ATE of claim 8 , wherein the ATE does not store the pseudo-random sequence of data outside of the SSD after being written to the SSD.

10. The ATE of claim 8 further configured to generate a write cyclic redundancy check (CRC) for a sector's pseudo-random sequence of data.

11. The ATE of claim 10 further configured to receive a read CRC from the SSD.

12. The ATE of claim 11 further configured to compare the read CRC to the write CRC.

13. The ATE of claim 8 further configured to receive and execute at least one command between a command to write a sector to the SSD and receiving said command to read and verify.

14. The ATE of claim 8 configured to test SSD sector sizes of 512, 520, 528, 4096, 4104, 4112, 4160, and 4224 bytes.

15. A machine-implemented method of testing a solid state drive (SSD), wherein the SSD has a sector size that is not an integral power of two, the method comprising:
receiving a command to read and verify an amount of data to the SSD starting at a starting address,
wherein the starting address is not constrained to correspond to a sector boundary and the amount of data is not constrained to be an integral multiple of a the SSD data sector size;
determining a starting sector of the SSD that corresponds to the starting address;
determining a number of sectors required to accommodate the amount of data to be read;
reading a sector from the SSD;
generating a pseudo-random sequence of data based on a sector number of the SSD; and
comparing the data read from the SSD to the generated pseudo-random sequence of data.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the pseudo-random sequence of data is only stored by the SSD after being written to the SSD.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising generating a write cyclic redundancy check (CRC) to the SSD for a sector's pseudo-random sequence of data.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:
receiving a read CRC from the SSD; and
comparing the read CRC to the write CRC.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein said determining a starting sector of the SSD that corresponds to the starting address is independent of software instructions.

20. The method of claim 15 wherein said determining a number of sectors required to accommodate the amount of data to be read is independent of software instructions.

Assignees

• Advantest Corp

Inventors

• Champoux Duane
• Malisic Srdjan

Classifications

• G11C2029/5602

  Interface to device under test · CPC title

• G01R31/31724

  Test controller, e.g. BIST state machine (for scan test G01R31/318555) · CPC title

• G01R31/2601 Primary

  Apparatus or methods therefor (G01R31/2607, G01R31/2642 take precedence) · CPC title

• G11C29/56008

  Error analysis, representation of errors · CPC title

• G01R31/31907

  Modular tester, e.g. controlling and coordinating instruments in a bus based architecture · CPC title