R&D: Radiation Induced Error Mitigation by Read-Retry Technique for MLC 3D NAND Flash

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science has published an article written by Preeti Kumari, Umeshwarnath Surendranathan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA, Maryla Wasiolek, Khalid Hattar, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185. USA, Narayana P. Bhat, Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA, and Biswajit Ray, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA.

Abstract: “In this paper, we have evaluated the Read-Retry (RR) functionality of the 3-D NAND chip of multi-level-cell (MLC) configuration after total ionization dose (TID) exposure. The RR function is typically offered in the high-density state-of-the-art NAND memory chips to recover data once the default memory read method fails to correct data with error correction codes (ECC). In this work, we have applied the RR method on the irradiated 3-D NAND chip that was exposed with a Co-60 gamma-ray source for TID up to 50 krad (Si). Based on our experimental evaluation results, we have proposed an algorithm to efficiently implement the RR method to extend the radiation tolerance of the NAND memory chip. Our experimental evaluation shows that the RR method coupled with ECC can ensure data integrity of MLC 3-D NAND for TID up to 50 krad (Si).“