Adaptive Artificial Neural Network-Coupled LDPC ECC as Universal Solution for 3-D and 2-D, Charge-Trap and Floating-Gate NAND Flash Memories

Adaptive artificial neural network (ANN)coupled low-density parity-check (LDPC) error-correcting code (ECC) (ANN-LDPC ECC) is proposed to increase acceptable errors for various NAND flash memories. The proposed ANN-LDPC ECC can be the universal solutions for 3-D and 2-D, charge-trap and floating-gate NAND flash memories. In 3-D NAND flash, lateral charge migration, vertical charge de-trap, inter floating-gate capacitive coupling noise, and inter word-line variations cause errors. On the other hand, in 2-D NAND flash, the charge de-trap and the harsh inter floating-gate capacitive coupling of adjacent word-lines and bit-lines cause errors. To solve these reliability problems, the proposed ANN automatically and adaptively compensates for complex memory cell errors. Moreover, the proposed ANNLDPC can reproduce the dynamic endurance and data-retention time dependence of errors. In addition, this paper evaluates the impacts of the chip-to-chip variations on the proposed ANN-LDPC. The proposed ANN-LDPC is implemented in the storage controller and can precisely and adaptively estimate bit-error rate (BER) and log-likelihood ratio (LLR). By using the precise LLR, LDPC decoder effectively corrects errors. As a result, ANN-LDPC extends the acceptable data-retention time by over 76× and 45× compared with conventional Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) ECC in 3-D and 2-D triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memories, respectively.