Asymmetric ECCs for Flash in high-radiation environments

Research in coding for Flash devices typically deals with errors that occur during normal device operation. This work is instead concerned with codes that protect Flash devices that are experiencing errors caused by exposure to large radiation dosages. Such errors occur when, for example, Flash is used as onboard memory in satellites and space probes. In a previous paper, we examined the effects of errors on MLC Flash cells and introduced appropriate code constructions. In this work, we focus on the single level cell (SLC) case. We model the errors as being the result of a binary asymmetric channel (BASC). We show how to modify existing error-correcting codes in order to produce codes capable of correcting radiation-induced errors. Our approach focuses on finding and dealing with miscorrections, where an asymmetric decoder incorrectly deals with errors it is not designed to handle.