Statistical Characterization of Noise and Interference in NAND Flash Memory

Given the limited set of empirical input/output data from flash memory cells, we describe a technique to statistically analyze different sources that cause the mean-shifts and random fluctuations in the read values of the cells. In particular, for a given victim cell, we are able to quantify the amount of interference coming from any arbitrarily chosen set of potentially influencing cells. The effect of noise and interference on the victim cell after repeated program/erase cycles as well as baking is also investigated. The results presented here can be used to construct a channel model with data-dependent noise and interference characteristics, which in turn can be utilized in designing and evaluating advanced coding and signal processing methods for flash memory.