High-speed memory system
View Patent ↗The disclosed embodiments relate to a Flash-based memory module having high-speed serial communication. The Flash-based memory module comprises, among other things, a plurality of I/O modules, each configured to communicate with an external device over one or more external communication links, a plurality of Flash-based memory cards, each comprising a plurality of Flash memory devices, and a plurality of crossbar switching elements, each being connected to a respective one of the Flash-based memory cards and configured to allow each one of the I/O modules to communicate with the respective one of the Flash-based memory cards. Each I/O module is connected to each crossbar switching element by a high-speed serial communication link, and each crossbar switching element is connected to the respective one of the Flash-based memory cards by a plurality of parallel communication links.
1. An expandable high-speed memory card, comprising:
a printed circuit board (PCB);
interface circuitry mounted on the PCB and configured to allow the high-speed memory card to receive bits representing instructions, commands, and/or data from one or more external devices over one or more high-speed serial communication links;
a plurality of memory devices mounted to the PCB, each memory device having a physical memory space on which memory operations are performed; and
a controller mounted to the PCB and connected to the interface circuitry and the plurality of memory devices, the controller configured to control communication between the interface circuitry and each memory device to allow the memory operations to be performed;
wherein the interface circuitry is connected to the controller by a plurality of high-speed serial communication lines, each high-speed serial communication line corresponding to one of the high-speed serial communication links; and
wherein the controller is connected to the plurality of memory devices by a predefined number of parallel communication lines, the controller configured to convert the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data from the high-speed serial communication links from a serial format to a parallel format.
2. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 1 wherein the one or more high-speed serial communication links comprises 24 high-speed serial communication links, and wherein each high-speed serial communication link is composed of two full-duplex serial communication channels, with each serial communication channel configured to carry communication independently of the other serial communication channel.
3. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 1 wherein the predefined number of parallel communication lines connecting the controller to the plurality of memory devices comprises 288 parallel communication lines.
4. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 1 wherein the controller comprises a serializer/deserializer and packing module, the serializer/deserializer and packing module configured to input the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data from the interface circuitry according to a serial format, and rearrange the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data according to a parallel format.
5. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 4 wherein the serializer/deserializer and packing module rearranges the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data according to a parallel format using a multi-gigabit transceiver and a storage buffer residing in the serializer/deserializer and packing module.
6. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 4 wherein the controller further comprises a multi-channel buffer configured to receive the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data rearranged in parallel format by the serializer/deserializer and packing module, and construct a predefined number of words from the bits representing commands, instructions and/or data, each word being composed of a predefined number of bits.
7. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 6 wherein the controller further comprises at least one error correction and data protection circuit configured to receive the words from the multi-channel buffer, generate one or more error correction code bits using the words, add the error correction code bits for each word to the word, and output each word with the error correction code bits added thereto.
8. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 7 wherein the controller further comprises output buffers connected to the at least one error correction and data protection circuit, the output buffers configured to receive in turn the words with the error correction code bits added thereto from the at least one error correction and data protection circuit such that a first word from the at least one error correction and data protection circuit is provided to one of the output buffers and a next word from the at least one error correction and data protection circuit is provided to another one of the output buffers.
9. The expandable high-speed memory card of claim 8 wherein the controller further comprises a memory buffer configured to receive the words with the error correction code bits added thereto from the output buffers and to combine a predefined number of the words in a predefined manner to form a super-word.