Achieving SLC performance with MLC flash memory

Although the Multi-Level-Cell technique is widely adopted by flash-memory vendors to boost the chip density and to lower the cost, it results in serious performance and reliability problems. Different from the past work, a new cell programming method is proposed to not only significantly improve the chip performance but also reduce the potential bit error rate. In particular, a Single-Level-Cell-like programming style is proposed to better explore the threshold-voltage relationship to denote different Multi-Level-Cell bit information, which in turn drastically provides a larger window of threshold voltage similar to that found in Single-Level-Cell chips. It could result in less programming iterations and simultaneously a much less reliability problem in programming flash-memory cells. In the experiments, the new programming style could accelerate the programming speed up to 742% and even reduce the bit error rate up to 471% for Multi-Level-Cell pages.