Performance of Multilevel Flash Memories with Different Binary Labelings: A Multi-User Perspective

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the performance of various decoding schemes and binary labelings in multilevel flash memories, considering multi-user scenarios, different noise models, and extending to three-level cells, to optimize data retrieval.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of TIN and SC decoding schemes for MLC and TLC flash memories, highlighting the impact of binary labelings and quantization on performance.

Findings

TIN and SC decoding achieve different rate regions depending on labeling.

Binary labeling significantly affects the sum rate and reliability.

Quantization of memory output influences decoding performance and capacity.

Abstract

In this work, we study the performance of different decoding schemes for multilevel flash memories where each page in every block is encoded independently. We focus on the multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory, which is modeled as a two-user multiple access channel suffering from asymmetric noise. The uniform rate regions and sum rates of Treating Interference as Noise (TIN) decoding and Successive Cancelation (SC) decoding are investigated for a Program/Erase (P/E) cycling model and a data retention model. We examine the effect of different binary labelings of the cell levels, as well as the impact of further quantization of the memory output (i.e., additional read thresholds). Finally, we extend our analysis to the three-level cell (TLC) flash memory.