Write improvement strategies for serial NOR dataflash memory

Embedded systems are ubiquitous and perform tasks such as data logging and monitoring. For these devices, lifetime, power use, and data consistency are critical. Systems require robust and energy efficient storage strategies. Serial NOR Dataflash is commonly used, but suffers from high write and erase times as well as limited lifetime. This work proposes write strategies for serial NOR Dataflash that improves efficiency and power use, and decreases write times. Experimental results demonstrate that using masked overwriting strategies can improve write times by an order of magnitude and reduce the number of required page erases, reduce energy consumed by writing and reduce data transfers by up to 90% for specific applications.