Data storage device and data writing method thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016170671-A1
Application number	US-201514945803-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 19, 2015
Priority date	Dec 10, 2014
Publication date	Jun 16, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present invention provides a data storage device including a flash memory and a controller. The flash memory has a plurality of physical pages. The controller receives a write command arranged to write first data to a plurality of specific logic addresses, determines whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data in response to the write command, and overwrites at least one first physical page of at least one first logic address of the specific logic addresses that has previously been written into and has valid data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A data storage device, comprising:
a flash memory, having a plurality of physical pages; and a controller, receiving a write command arranged to write first data into a plurality of specific logic addresses, and determining whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data in response to the write command, wherein the controller overwrites at least one first physical page of at least one first logic address of the specific logic addresses that has previously been written into and has valid data, and the controller further selects a plurality of second physical pages from the flash memory according to the flash memory to write the first data into the second physical pages and maps the first logic address to the second physical pages after the first physical page is overwritten.

2 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller produces at least one first sub write command having a first format to enable the flash memory first sub write command to overwrite the first physical page in response to the first sub write command, and the controller further produces a plurality of second sub write commands having a second format to enable the flash memory to write the first data into the second physical pages in response to the second sub write commands, wherein the first format and the second format are different.

3 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the first format comprises a special-mode-switching instruction, a write instruction, a word-line address and a data sector, and the second format comprises a write instruction, a physical page address and a data sector.

4 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is arranged to overwrite the first physical page by a first write mode and overwrite the first data into the second physical pages by a second write mode, wherein the first write mode and the second write mode are different.

5 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the flash memory operates in multi-level cell, the first write mode is a single-level-cell write mode, and the second write mode is a multi-level-cell write mode.

6 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein when all of the specific logic addresses have not been written into or do not have valid data, the controller selects a plurality of third physical pages from the flash memory according to the write command to write the first data into the third physical pages and maps the first logic address to the third physical pages.

7 . The data storage device as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the controller determines whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data by using a physical/logical mapping table, the physical/logical mapping table records relationships of the specific logic addresses and the second physical pages for mapping the first logic address to the second physical pages, and the physical/logical mapping table further records relationships of the specific logic addresses and the third physical pages for mapping the first logic address to the third physical pages.

8 . A data writing method, applied to a data storage device, wherein the data storage device comprises a flash memory, the flash memory has a plurality of physical pages, and the data writing method comprises:
receiving a write command arranged to write first data into a plurality of a plurality of specific logic adresses; determining whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data in response to the write command; overwriting at least one first physical page of at least one first logic address of the specific logic addresses that has previously been written into and has valid data; and selecting a plurality of second physical pages from the flash memory according to the flash memory to write the first data into the second physical pages and mapping the first logic address to the second physical pages after the first physical page is overwritten.

9 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the step of overwriting the first physical page further comprises producing at least one first sub write command having a first format to enable the flash memory first sub write command to overwrite the first physical page in response to the first sub write command, and the step of writing the first data into the second physical pages further comprises producing a plurality of second sub write commands having a second format to enable the flash memory to write the first data into the second physical pages in response to the second sub write commands, wherein the first format and the second format are different.

10 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the first format comprises a special-mode-switching instruction, a write instruction, a word-line address and a data sector, and the second format comprises a write instruction, a physical page address and a data sector.

11 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the step of overwriting the first physical page is arranged to overwrite the first physical page by a first write mode, and the step of writing the first data into the second physical pages is arranged to overwrite the first data into the second physical pages by a second write mode, wherein the first write mode and the second write mode are different.

12 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 11 , wherein the flash memory operates in multi-level cell, the first write mode is a single-level-cell write mode, and the second write mode is a multi-level-cell write mode.

13 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 8 , further comprising selecting a plurality of third physical pages from the flash memory according to the write command to write the first data into the third physical pages and mapping the first logic address to the third physical pages when all of the specific logic addresses have not been written into or do not have valid data.

14 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 13 , wherein the step of determining whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data further comprises determining whether the specific logic addresses have been written into and have valid data by using a physical/logical mapping table, the step of mapping the first logic address to the second physical pages further comprises recording relationships of the specific logic addresses and the second physical pages in the physical/logical mapping table for mapping the first logic address to the second physical pages, and the step of mapping the first logic address to the third physical pages further comprises recording relationships of the specific logic addresses and the third physical pages in the physical/logical mapping table for mapping the first logic address to the third physical pages.

15 . A data writing method, applied to a data storage device, wherein the data storage device comprises a flash memory, the flash memory comprises a plurality of physical pages, and the data writing method comprises:
receiving a write command having first data and a first logic address; selecting a second physical page from the flash memory to write the first data into the second physical page and mapping the first logic address to the second physical page; and overwriting at least one first physical page of the first logic address when the first logic address has been written into and has valid data.

16 . The data writing method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the ste

Assignees

• Silicon Motion Inc

Inventors

• Huang Shiuan-Wei

Classifications

• G06F3/0679

  Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP] · CPC title

• G06F3/0619 Primary

  in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors · CPC title

• G06F2212/7201

  Logical to physical mapping or translation of blocks or pages · CPC title

• G06F3/0659

  Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling · CPC title

• G06F3/0622

  in relation to access · CPC title