NAND flash memory, as well as other types of non-volatile memories (“NVMs”), are commonly used for mass storage. For example, consumer electronics such as portable media players often include flash memory to store music, videos, and other media.
The flash memory exists in the form of a silicon die, and in some implementations, more than one die may be used. Multiple die implementations provide greater mass storage capacity, but it may also require additional real estate and associated supporting electronics such as busses, control circuitry, and power circuitry. In addition, the control circuitry can be placed on top of a stack multiple dies or on a printed circuit board adjacent to the dies, both of which can increase the overall space requirements of the system.
A die package having a vertical stack of dies and side-mounted circuitry and methods for making the same are disclosed. The side-mounted circuitry is mounted to a side region such as a vertical surface of the stack, as opposed to a top surface of the stack to reduce the height of the NVM package.
The above and other aspects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:
A die package having a vertical stack of dies and side-mounted control circuitry and methods for the production thereof are provided. The stacking of the dies can result in vertical surfaces (or walls) that are perpendicular and/or oblique to the top and bottom surfaces of the stack. These vertical surfaces serve as real estate on which various side-mounted circuitry can be mounted. As defined herein, a vertical surface can be any side of the vertical stack, and the vertical surface can be perpendicular to the top and bottom surfaces or it can be non-perpendicular with respect to the top and bottom surfaces. In accordance with embodiments of this invention, side-mounted circuitry can be mounted to a portion of one or more of the vertical surfaces. Side mounting the circuitry can reduce the height and footprint of the NVM package. Such reductions can advantageously serve design criteria requiring decreased volume of electronic devices, while simultaneously providing the same or increased storage capacity.
Turning now to
Each die of NVM dies 102 can be substantially rectangular in shape (e.g., rectangular or square), and thus can have a length, width, top surface, bottom surface, side surfaces, and edges. Although only four dies are shown in
Dies 102 can include a NAND flash memory based on floating gate or charge trapping technology (e.g., each of dies 102 can be a NAND flash die), NOR flash memory, EPROM, EEPROM, Ferroelectric RAM (“FRAM”), or magnetoresistive RAM (“MRAM”). Dies 102 can be a “raw” NAND and as such includes single-level cells (“SLCs”) and/or multi-level cells (“MLCs”) for storing data, address lines (e.g., word lines), addressing circuitry for accessing the SLCs or MLCs, and other die specific circuitry such as charge pumps.
It should be understood that although dies 102 are referred to herein as NAND flash memory dies, dies 102 can be any other suitable silicon based product. For example, dies 102 can be volatile memory dies such as DRAM or SRAM. As another example, dies having different functionality can be stacked. For instance, a stack can include a system-on-chip (“SOC”) die, a DRAM die, and NAND die, and side-mounted circuitry can be mounted to a side of the stack.
Side-mounted circuitry 104 can have any suitable shape such as, for example, a rectangular shape or a square shape. Side-mounted circuitry 104 can perform any suitable operations with respect to dies 102. That is, the functionality of side-mounted circuitry 104 may depend on the product embodied in dies 102. In one embodiment, side-mounted circuitry 104 can serve as control circuitry or a controller for NVM package 100. Side-mounted circuitry 104 can be configured to access memory locations of one or more of NVM dies 102. For example, side-mounted circuitry 104 can be configured to perform any number of NVM operations and can include an interface for communication with NVM dies 102 and circuitry located remote to NVM package 100. The NVM operations can include operations for providing a complete managed NAND solution such as maintaining translation tables, and/or performing wear leveling, refresh events, error correction, and garbage collection. Alternatively, the NVM operations executed by circuitry 104 can include a subset of the complete managed NAND operations, and execution of this subset may be referred to herein as a simplified managed NAND solution. Additional details of various control circuitry functions are discussed below in connection with
In another embodiment, if dies 102 are volatile memory dies, side-mounted circuitry can serve as a control circuitry for controlling volatile memory. In yet another embodiment, the dies include a mixture of SOC, DRAM, and NVM dies, side-mounted circuitry 104 can be power management circuitry. In yet another embodiment, side-mounted circuitry can include one or more passive components such as resistors or capacitors.
Side-mounted circuitry 104 can be mounted on any one of vertical surfaces 106a-d of the vertical stack of NVM dies 102. As shown in
By mounting circuitry 104 to the vertical stack in such a manner, the height specification of NVM package 100 is reduced because the mounting of circuitry 104 takes advantage of the existing height of the vertical stack. Thus, in contrast to mounting circuitry 104 on top of the vertical stack of dies 102, or on a printed circuit board adjacent to the stack, the footprint and height are reduced.
Referring now to
Each of NVM dies 102 can include custom pad and trace placements (not shown) in order to facilitate exchange of signals to, from, and/or between dies 102. The pads may be electrically coupled to control circuitry 104 via interconnection circuitry (not shown) to permit communication between side-mounted circuitry 104 and dies 102. Interconnection circuitry can be constructed from any suitable material such as, for example, conductive epoxy, wire bonds, or a combination thereof. Interconnection circuitry can take any suitable form to electrically connect circuitry 104 to dies 102.
In some embodiments, a layer of adhesive and/or insulation material can function as an adhesive for mounting the control circuitry to the vertical surface of the vertical stack. Thus, in some case, the layer of adhesive and/or insulation material can be placed between the side-mounted circuitry and the vertical surface of the vertical stack. In other embodiments, interconnection circuitry can effectively serve as the adhesive for mounting the control circuitry to the vertical surface of the vertical stack. In some embodiments, when the die are stacked in a staggered step configuration, the adhesive may provide a substantially planar surface onto which the side-mounted circuitry can be mounted.
Then, at step 806, the side-mounted circuitry can be electrically coupled to at least one die or to the substrate (e.g., as discussed above in connection with
It should be understood that process 800 of
Host processor 910 can include one or more processors or microprocessors. Alternatively or in addition, host processor 910 can include or operate in conjunction with any other components or circuitry capable of controlling various operations of system 900 (e.g., application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”)). In a processor-based implementation, host processor 910 can execute firmware and software programs loaded into a memory (not shown) implemented on the host. The memory can include any suitable type of volatile memory (e.g., cache memory or random access memory (“RAM”), such as double data rate (“DDR”) RAM or static RAM (“SRAM”)). Host processor 910 can execute NVM driver 912, which may provide vendor-specific and/or technology-specific instructions that enable host processor 910 to perform various memory management and access functions for NVM package 920.
Package 920 may be a stacked NVM package constructed with side-mounted circuitry in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. In one embodiment, package 920 can be a volatile memory package. In another embodiment, package can be a NVM package. NVM package 920 may be a comprehensive managed NVM package or simplified managed NVM package. In either managed NVM implementation, NVM package 920 can include side-mounted circuitry 922, which is electrically coupled to any suitable number of NVM dies that are vertically stacked (e.g., NVM dies 102 of
Side-mounted circuitry 922 may include any suitable combination of processors or hardware-based components (e.g., ASICs), and may include the same components as or different components from host processor 910. In the simplified managed NVM package, side-mounted circuitry 922 may share the responsibility of managing and/or accessing the physical memory locations of NVM dies 924 with NVM driver 912. For example, NVM driver 912 can perform all management functions except error correction, which is performed by side-mounted circuitry 922.
In the comprehensive managed NVM package, side-mounted circuitry 922 may perform substantially all of the management and access functions for NVM dies 924 independent of host processor 910. In this approach, circuitry 922 can pass data retrieved from NVM dies 924 to host processor 910. Comprehensive managed NVM packages can be found, for example, in USB thumb drives.
NVM dies 924 may be used to store information that needs to be retained when system 900 is powered down. NVM dies 924 can be organized into “blocks,” which are the smallest units of erase, and further organized into “pages,” which are the smallest programmable and readable units. In some embodiments, the blocks from different dies may form “super blocks.” Each memory location (e.g., page or block) of NVM dies 924 can be addressed using a physical address (e.g., a physical page address or physical block address).
The described embodiments of the invention are presented for the purpose of illustration and not of limitation.
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