ABSTRACT
NAND Flash memory is a multi-billion dollar industry which is projected to continue to show significant growth until at least 2017. Devices such as smart-phones, tablets and Solid State Drives use NAND Flash since it has numerous advantages over Hard Disk Drives including better performance, lower power consumption, and lower weight. However, storage locations within Flash devices have a limited working lifetime, as they slowly degrade through use, eventually becoming unreliable and failing. The number of times a location can be programmed is termed its endurance, and can vary significantly, even between locations within the same device. There is currently no technique available to predict endurance, resulting in manufacturers placing extremely conservative specifications on their Flash devices. We perform symbolic regression using Genetic Programming to estimate the endurance of storage locations, based only on the duration of program and erase operations recorded from them. We show that the quality of estimations for a device can be refined and improved as the device continues to be used, and investigate a number of different approaches to deal with the significant variations in the endurance of storage locations. Results show this technique's huge potential for real-world application.
- T. Arbuckle, D. Hogan, and C. Ryan. Optimising Flash memory for differing usage scenarios: Goals and approach. In Proc. Int. Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, pages 137--140, August 2012.Google ScholarCross Ref
- T. Arbuckle, D. Hogan, and C. Ryan. Optimising Flash non-volatile memory using machine learning: A project overview. In Proc. 5th Balkan Conference on Informatics, pages 235--238, September 2012. Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. Arbuckle, D. Hogan, and C. Ryan. Learning predictors for Flash memory endurance: A comparative study of alternative classification methods. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies, 2013. To appear.Google Scholar
- S. Boboila and P. Desnoyers. Write endurance in Flash drives: Measurement and analysis. In 8th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies, pages 115--128, February 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Y.-T. Chiu. Forever Flash. IEEE Spectrum, 49(12):11--12, 2012.Google ScholarCross Ref
- P. Desnoyers. Empirical evaluation of NAND Flash memory performance. SIGOPS Oper. Syst. Rev., pages 50--54, March 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Flash Memory Summit. Flash memory backgrounder. http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/ Conference/FM\_Backgrounder.html. Accessed January 28th, 2013.Google Scholar
- R. H. Fowler and L. Nordheim. Electron emission in intense electric fields. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, 119(781):173--181, 1928.Google ScholarCross Ref
- L. Grupp, J. Davis, and S. Swanson. The bleak future of NAND Flash memory. In Proc. 10th USENIX conference on File and Storage Technologies, pages 17--24, February 2012. Google ScholarDigital Library
- L. M. Grupp, A. M. Caulfield, J. Coburn, S. Swanson, E. Yaakobi, P. H. Siegel, and J. K. Wolf. Characterizing Flash memory: Anomalies, observations, and applications. In Proc. 42nd Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture, pages 24--33, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. L. Hintze and R. D. Nelson. Violin plots: A box Plot-Density trace synergism. The American Statistician, 52(2):181--184, 1998.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. Hogan, T. Arbuckle, and C. Ryan. Evolving a storage block endurance classifier for Flash memory: A trial implementation. In Proc. 11th IEEE Int. Conference on Cybernetic Intelligent Systems, pages 12--17, August 2012.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. Hogan, T. Arbuckle, and C. Ryan. How early and with how little data? Using genetic programming to evolve endurance classifiers for MLC NAND Flash memory. In Proc. 16th European Conference on Genetic Programming, pages 253--264, April 2013. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Hogan, T. Arbuckle, C. Ryan, and J. Sullivan. Evolving a retention period classifier for use with Flash memory. In Proc. 4th Int. Conf. on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications, pages 24--33, October 2012.Google Scholar
- ICInsights. Total Flash memory market will surpass DRAM for first time in 2012. http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Total-Flash-Memory-Market-Will-Surpass-DRAM-For-First-Time-In-2012, December 2012. Accessed 27th Jan., 2013.Google Scholar
- M. Keijzer. Improving symbolic regression with interval arithmetic and linear scaling. In Proc. 6th European Conference on Genetic Programming, pages 70--82, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. R. Koza. Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection. The MIT press, 1992. Google ScholarDigital Library
- H. Li and Y. Chen. An overview of non-volatile memory technology and the implication for tools and architectures. In Design, Automation Test in Europe, pages 731--736, April 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Luke. ECJ 20. A Java-based evolutionary computation research system. http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/projects/ecj/, October 2010.Google Scholar
- F. Masuoka and H. Iizuka. Semiconductor memory device and method for manufacturing the same, 1980. US Patent 4,531,203.Google Scholar
- R. Micheloni, L. Crippa, and A. Marelli. Inside NAND Flash Memories. Springer, 2010.Google ScholarCross Ref
- R. Micheloni, A. Marelli, and K. Eshghi. Inside Solid State Drives (SSDs), volume 37 of Springer Series in Advanced Microelectronics. Springer, 2012. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. Micheloni, A. Marelli, and R. Ravasio. Error Correction Codes for Non-Volatile Memories. Springer, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- V. Mohan, T. Siddiqua, S. Gurumurthi, and M. R. Stan. How I learned to stop worrying and love Flash endurance. In Proc. 2nd USENIX conference on Hot topics in storage and file systems, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Y. Pan, G. Dong, and T. Zhang. Exploiting memory device wear-out dynamics to improve NAND Flash memory system performance. In Proc. 9th USENIX conference on File and storage technologies, 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Sullivan and C. Ryan. A destructive evolutionary algorithm process. Soft Computing -- A Fusion of Foundations, Methodologies and Applications, 15:95--102, 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Witters, G. Groeseneken, and H. Maes. Degradation of tunnel-oxide floating-gate EEPROM devices and the correlation with high field-current-induced degradation of thin gate oxides. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 36(9):1663--1682, September 1989.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Estimating MLC NAND flash endurance: a genetic programming based symbolic regression application
Recommendations
A strategy to emulate NOR flash with NAND flash
This work is motivated by a strong market demand for the replacement of NOR flash memory with NAND flash memory to cut down the cost of many embedded-system designs, such as mobile phones. Different from LRU-related caching or buffering studies, we are ...
NAND Flash-Based Disk Cache Using SLC/MLC Combined Flash Memory
SNAPI '10: Proceedings of the 2010 International Workshop on Storage Network Architecture and Parallel I/OsFlash memory-based non-volatile cache (NVC) is emerging as an effective solution for enhancing both the performances and the energy consumptions of storage systems. In order to attain significant performance and energy gains from NVC, it would be better ...
NAND flash memory system based on the Harvard buffer architecture for multimedia applications
The main purpose of this research is to design a new memory architecture for NAND flash memory to provide XIP (execute in place) for code execution as well as overcome the biggest bottleneck for data execution. NOR flash for multimedia application is ...
Comments