Chapter 1416 I want to vent my anger
“This is a very insightful point of view.” Zhou Zhi nodded to express his understanding: “But when upgrading from bits to blocks, a problem will inevitably occur.”
“The memory on every integrated circuit The storage grid has an upper limit on the number of times it can be erased and written. In the past, it was erased bit by bit. If one was damaged, it would jump to another one to continue. In this way, for the storage space of the chip, the damaged one would be skipped. What a big problem.”
“Read it now. Writing becomes block reading and writing, and the problem becomes that if a grid is damaged, a data block cannot be used. For the life quality requirements of flash memory, this waste is too great."
"Indeed. There is such a problem." Fujio Shioka frowned and said, "But. We have also proposed a solution, which is to use blocks as evenly as possible, use a random algorithm to access the next data block that can be read and written, and avoid excessive reuse of the same data block. This can solve a large part of the problem. question.”
"Indeed, from our Clover analysis of Toshiba NAND flash memory, we also found that the algorithm invented by Mr. Shuoka is quite clever and compromise." Zhou Zhi smiled: "But Mr. Shuoka has to admit that this It’s just a temporary solution but not the root cause. One point will still be damaged and one block will become unusable. It’s not the ultimate solution. ”
"I'm sorry Zhou Sang, I have caused you trouble!" The problems pointed out by Zhou Zhi are indeed problems that the Shuogang team has not been able to solve in the first generation of NAND flash memory: "The problems Zhou Sang mentioned do exist, and we were originally planning to improve them. Yes, but now..."
"But now even the NAND team is gone, right?" Matsui said.
“This...basic guarantee is still available...” Fujio Shigaoka’s face showed some embarrassment: “As far as I know, Toshiba is still planning to use the profits from DRAM to repay some to NAND and keep the remaining to Yotsuba. The ability of the grass god..."
However, these words revealed that he was quite unconfident.
"If you have funds and a team, how are Mr. Shuogang going to solve this problem?" Zhou Zhi asked: "I'm asking about ideas."
"There are several ideas." Shuogang said: "First of all It is to increase the area of the grid and reduce the flipping and drift of charges, so that the data storage can be more accurate, while also reducing the number of invalid erases and improving the life of the flash memory. "
"This will reduce the maximum weight of the chip. The volumetric performance is required, which is contrary to Mr. Shuogang's idea of 'turning bits into blocks' to increase volumetric performance." Zhou Zhi shook his head and said, "In this way, the performance of the chip has not been improved much, but the previous advantages have been. No more. "
"The other thing is to modify the block storage algorithm and make the data block smaller."
"The data block is made half smaller and the addressing area is doubled?" Zhou Zhi asked.
Fujio Shioka also shook his head slightly. This method will also lose a huge amount of storage space to store the addressing area. The idea is not much better than the previous method.
"The rest...the only thing we have to do is to use our brains on the addressing algorithm." Fujio Sugaoka said: "But such research and development requires a lot of investment, and now..."
"Mr. Shuoka, please look at this." Zhou Zhi took out an A4 paper with a code printed on it from his bag and handed it to Fujio Shuoka.
"This...this...this is the floating address temporary allocation algorithm! This is to achieve balanced erasure and data block reorganization through dynamic addresses!" Fujio Shigaoka took it over and took a look, and he suddenly became very excited, and then After flipping through the paper, I was disappointed to find the A4 paper. The page was blank: "Where is the rest of the code?!"
Zhouzhi took the paper back in time and put it back into the bag: "The rest of the code is in the company. If Mr. Shuoka is willing to become our The technical director of the company's flash memory R&D department can accept any We have touched upon our improvement plan." "I can now give Mr. Shuogang a general outline of our thinking." Zhou Zhi knows that for people who are addicted to alcohol, they can smell the smell of alcohol but cannot drink it, or even drink it. Even if you can’t see it, that’s the most annoying thing: “The idea of our algorithm is , only those BLOCKs that actually write data will get a temporarily allocated data address, and for the remaining space, the system treats it as a 'to-be-allocated' state, instead of being allocated like the current flash memory. OK.”
“When the data enters the cache, the algorithm will calculate the required storage space based on the size of the data, then temporarily calculate the addresses for these spaces, issue the addresses to these BLOCKs, and then write the data in the cache into it. "
"The same reverse principle, when the data is erased, these blocks will be released, and the addresses they originally occupied will be reclaimed by the system, and the released space will return to the space pool to be allocated. Waiting for the next combination and Allocation. "
"If there are bad points, then these points will be discarded the next time the data block is reorganized. This will achieve the maximum utilization and achieve the same performance as EEPROM, but Continue to maintain the greatest advantage of flash memory.”
“But this algorithm also needs to be stored separately, and it is always in the calculation logic.” Fujio Shigaoka fell into thinking: “So how to solve the problem of algorithm chips?”
"With ROM, the algorithm is solidified in the ROM, which is very cheap." Zhou Zhi said: "When turning on the computer, NAND will self-check the available space, and divide an addressing algorithm module in the space to transfer the addressing algorithm in the ROM. Boot it into NAND, and let NAND do the rest."
"Brilliant!" Tomi Oka. Shixiong slapped his thigh: "Add a boot module to FLASH! But this also requires an operating instruction set... Hi! This is the strength of your Clover company!"
"This set of algorithms is still available today. We only passed the feasibility verification by staying on the MiniCos system," Zhou Zhi said sincerely: "We need to solidify it into ROM. This is Mr. Seokoka's strength, so our company wants to hire him as the technical director of our flash memory division to be responsible for this."
"That's it...but it's my invention, intellectual property. They all belong to Toshiba," Shioka said: "If we continue to study, it will inevitably conflict with Toshiba's IP core, which may cause huge publicity. Intellectual property litigation..."
"Please rest assured, sir." Zhou Zhi smiled and said: "We have entrusted the Intellectual Property Division of AXA Fund to negotiate with Toshiba about the IP licensing of Mr.'s important inventions in the company. So far, Mr. Toshiba has more than 500 invention patents, and AXA Fund has bought them all.”
"As long as Mr. comes here, we can continue the original research and development. From hardware to software, I will provide him with everything."
"You...have you even thought of this?" Fujio Fujioka said with some anxiety. Asked: "I have a question I want to ask Of course, if Zhou Sang finds it difficult to answer, just ask. "
"I want to know the total cost of AXA Fund to obtain these authorizations from Toshiba. How much did it cost?" asked Fujio Sugaoka.
"This amount may disappoint Mr. Shuogang." Zhou Zhi said: "AXA only spent less than 100,000 US dollars in total."
Shuoka's chest rose and fell several times, then he grabbed the small wine glass Ikedaoka put on the table and drank it in one gulp, with red eyes: "I have decided! Join Clover and continue to develop flash memory! I want to vent this bad breath!"< br>
“Ah! Why is this wine so spicy!”
(End of this chapter)