US 11,809,312 B2
Garbage collection operation management based on overall spare area
Tzu-Yi Yang, Hsinchu County (TW)
Assigned to Silicon Motion, Inc., Hsinchu County (TW)
Filed by Silicon Motion, Inc., Hsinchu County (TW)
Filed on Mar. 19, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/206,137.
Application 17/206,137 is a continuation of application No. 17/179,342, filed on Feb. 18, 2021, granted, now 11,494,299.
Prior Publication US 2022/0261343 A1, Aug. 18, 2022
Int. Cl. G06F 12/02 (2006.01)
CPC G06F 12/0253 (2013.01) [G06F 12/0246 (2013.01); G06F 2212/7205 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of managing a garbage collection (GC) operation on a flash memory, comprising:
calculating an overall spare area in a flash memory, which includes a spare area in a plurality of spare blocks in the flash memory and at least two of: a spare area in one or more target blocks to which user data of host write commands is being written, a spare area in one or more destination blocks to which valid data of the GC operation is being written and a spare area in a source block from which valid data of the GC operation is being read; wherein the overall spare area indicates spare areas in both erased blocks and non-erased blocks;
determining an adjustment factor according to the overall spare area; and
performing the GC operation on the source block according to a GC-to-host base ratio and the adjustment factor, wherein the adjustment factor and a size of the overall spare area have a negative correlation.