Memory Reliability Improvement Based on Maximized Error-Correcting Codes

Autor: Yannick Bonhomme, Samuel Evain, Valentin Gherman
Přispěvatelé: Département d'Architectures, Conception et Logiciels Embarqués-LIST (DACLE-LIST), Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies (LIST), Direction de Recherche Technologique (CEA) (DRT (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Direction de Recherche Technologique (CEA) (DRT (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), ANR-10-SEGI-0007,EMYR,Rendement et Fiabilité des Mémoires en technologie MRAM(2010), Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies (LIST (CEA))
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Electronic Testing
Journal of Electronic Testing, Springer Verlag, 2013, 29, pp.601-608. ⟨10.1007/s10836-013-5396-6⟩
Journal of Electronic Testing: : Theory and Applications
Journal of Electronic Testing: : Theory and Applications, 2013, 29, pp.601-608. ⟨10.1007/s10836-013-5396-6⟩
ISSN: 0923-8174
1573-0727
DOI: 10.1007/s10836-013-5396-6⟩
Popis: International audience; Error-correcting codes (ECC) offer an efficient way to improve the reliability and yield of memory subsystems. ECC-based protection is usually provided on a memory word basis such that the number of data-bits in a codeword corresponds to the amount of information that can be transferred during a single memory access operation. Consequently, the codeword length is not the maximum allowed by a certain check-bit number since the number of data-bits is constrained by the width of the memory data interface. This work investigates the additional error correction opportunities offered by the absence of a perfect match between the numbers of data-bits and check-bits in some widespread ECCs. A method is proposed for the selection of multi-bit errors that can be additionally corrected with a minimal impact on ECC decoder latency. These methods were applied to single-bit error correction (SEC) codes and double-bit error correction (DEC) codes. Reliability improvements are evaluated for memories in which all errors affecting the same number of bits in a codeword are independent and identically distributed. It is shown that the application of the proposed methods to conventional DEC codes can improve the mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) of memories with up to 30 %. Maximized versions of the DEC codes are also proposed in which all adjacent triple-bit errors become correctable without affecting the maximum number of triple-bit errors that can be made correctable.
Databáze: OpenAIRE