• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.263-272
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• 2011

The complexity of flash memory based storage systems is high due to diverse host interfaces and other design choices such as mapping granularity, flash memory controller execution models and so on. Thus, it is possible that the actual performance after implementation is not consistent with the target performance. This paper demonstrates that the performance prediction of flash memory based storage systems is possible through performance modeling that takes into account various design parameters. In the performance modeling, the FTL, which is the core element of flash memory based storage systems, is modeled as a set of (copy-on-write) logs and their interactions. Also, the flash memory controller is modeled based on the classification proposed in the design of the Ozone flash controller. In this study, the performance model has been implemented using Simulink and experimental results are presented and analyzed.

• Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2011

The flash memory has been remarked as the next generation media of portable and desktop computers' storage devices. Their features include non-volatility, low power consumption, and fast access time for read operations, which are sufficient to present flash memories as major data storage components for desktop and servers. The purpose of our study is to upgrade a traditional mirroring scheme based on SSD storages due to the relatively slow or freezing characteristics of write operations, as compared to fast read operations. For this work, we propose a new storage management scheme called Memory Mirror-Switching based on traditional mirroring scheme. Our Mirror-Switching scheme improves flash operation performance by switching write-workloads from flash memory to RAM and delaying write operations to avoid freezing. Our test results show that our scheme significantly reduces the write operation delay and storage freezing.

• Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.41-46
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• 2010

Recently, Flash Memory Drives are one of the best media to support portable and desktop computers' storage devices. Their features include non-volatility, low power consumption, and fast access time for read operations, which are sufficient to present flash memories as major database storage components for desktop and server computers. However, we need to improve traditional storage management schemes based on HDD(Hard Disk Drive) and RAID(Redundant Array of Independent Disks) due to the relatively slow or freezing characteristics of write operations of SSDs, as compared to fast read operations. In order to achieve this goal, we propose a new storage management scheme called Hetero-Mirroring based on traditional HDD mirroring scheme. Hetero-Mirroring-based storage management improves RAID-1 operation performance by balancing write-workloads and delaying write operations to avoid SSD freezing.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.17-21
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• 2008

Application of flash memory in mobile and ubiquitous related devices is rapidly being increased due to its low price and high performance. In addition, some notebook computers currently come out into market with a SSD(Solid State Disk) instead of hard-drive based storage system. Regarding this trend, applications need to increase the storage capacity using multiple flash memory chips for larger capacity sooner or later. Flash memory based storage subsystem should resolve the performance bottleneck for writing in perspective of speed and lifetime according to its physical property. In order to make flash memory storage work with tangible performance, reclaiming of invalid regions needs to be controlled in a particular manner to decrease the number of erasures and to distribute the erasures uniformly over the whole memory space as much as possible. In this paper, we study the performance of flash memory recycling algorithms and demonstrate that the proposed algorithm shows acceptable performance for flash memory storage with multiple chips. The proposed cleaning method partitions the memory space into candidate memory regions, to be reclaimed as free, by utilizing threshold values. The proposed algorithm handles the storage system in multi-layered style. The impact of the proposed policies is evaluated through a number of experiments.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.94-101
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• 2013

The market for NAND flash-based storage devices has grown significantly as they rapidly replace traditional disk-based storage devices. Heterogeneous NAND flash-based storage devices using both multi-level cell (MLC) and single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memories are also actively researched since both types of memories complement each other. Heterogeneous NAND flash-based storage devices suffer from the overheads incurred by migration from SLC to MLC and garbage collection of SLC. This paper proposes a new flash translation layer (FTL) for heterogeneous NAND flash-based storage devices to reduce the overheads by utilizing SLC efficiently. The proposed FTL analyzes the access patterns of logical blocks and selects and stores only logical blocks expected to bring performance improvement in SLC. The experimental results show that the total execution time of heterogeneous NAND flash-based storage devices with our proposed FTL scheme is 35% shorter than that with the previously proposed best FTL scheme.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.508-519
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• 2007

Flash memory based storage has been used in various mobile systems and now is to be used in Laptop computers in the name of Solid State Disk. The Flash memory has not only merits in terms of weight, shock resistance, and power consumption but also limitations like erase-before-write property. To overcome these limitations, Flash memory based storage requires special address mapping software called FTL(Flash-memory Translation Layer), which often performs merge operation for block recycling. In order to reduce block recycling cost in NAND Flash memory based storage, we introduce another block recycling scheme which we call migration. As a result, the FTL can select either merge or migration depending on their costs for each block recycling. Experimental results with Postmark benchmark and embedded system workload show that this cost-based selection of migration/merge operation improves the performance of Flash memory based storage. Also, we present a solution of macroscopic optimal migration/merge sequence that minimizes a block recycling cost for each migration/merge combination period. Experimental results show that the performance of Flash memory based storage can be more improved by the macroscopic optimization than the simple cost-based selection.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.04a
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• pp.157-159
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• 2007

The conventional hard disk has been the dominant database storage system for over 25 years. Recently, hybrid systems which incorporate the advantages of flash memory into the conventional hard disks are considered to be the next dominant storage systems to support databases for desktops and server computers. Their features are satisfying the requirements like enhanced data I/O, energy consumption and reduced boot time, and they are sufficient to hybrid storage systems as major database storages. However, we need to improve traditional index node management schemes based on B-Tree due to the relatively slow characteristics of hard disk operations, as compared to flash memory. In order to achieve this goal, we propose a new index node management scheme called FNC-Tree. FNC-Tree-based index node management enhanced search and update performance by caching data objects in unused free area of flash leaf nodes to reduce slow hard disk I/Os in index access processes.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.253-259
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• 2018

Recently, small satellite industries are rapidly changing. Demand for high performance small satellites is increasing with the expansion of Earth Observation Satellite market. A next-generation small satellites require a higher resolution image storage capacity than before. However, there is a problem that the HW configuration of the existing small satellite image storage device could not meet these requirements. The conventional data storing system uses SDRAM to store image data taken from satellites. When SDRAM is used in small satellite platform of a next generation, there is a problem that the cost of physical space is eight times higher and satellite price is two times higher than NAND Flash. Using the same satellite hardware configuration for next-generation satellites will increase the satellite volume to meet hardware requirements. Additional cost is required for structural design, environmental testing, and satellite launch due to increasing volume. Therefore, in order to construct a low-cost, high-efficiency system. This paper shows a next-generation solid state recorder unit (SSRU) using MRAM and NAND Flash instead of SDRAM. As a result of this research, next generation small satellite retain a storage size and weight and improves the data storage space by 15 times and the storage speed by 4.5 times compare to conventional design. Also reduced energy consumption by 96% compared to SDRAM based storage devices.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.639-644
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• 2015

The capacity of flash-based storage such as Solid State Drive(SSD) and embedded Multi Media Card(eMMC) is ever-increasing because of the needs from the end-users. However, if a flash-based storage crashes, such as during power failure, the flash translation layer(FTL) is responsible for the crash recovery based on the entire flash memory. The recovery time increases as the capacity of the flash-based storages increases. We propose O1FTL with O(1) crash recovery time that is independent of the flash capacity. O1FTL adopts the working area technique suggested for the flash file system and evaluates the design on a real hardware platform. The results show that O1FTL achieves a crash recovery time that is independent of the capacity and the overhead, in terms of I/O performance, and achieves a low P/E cycle.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.181-194
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• 2009

Flash memory is increasingly being used in a wide range of storage applications because of its low power consumption, low access latency, small form factor, and high shock resistance. However, the current platforms for flash memory software development do not meet the ever-increasing requirements of flash memory applications. This paper presents three different hardware platforms for flash memory/NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) software development that overcome the limitations of the current platforms. The three platforms target different types of host system and provide various features that facilitate the development and verification of flash memory/NVRAM software. In this paper, we also demonstrate the usefulness of the three platforms by implementing three different types of storage system (one for each platform) based on them.