Integrated erase voltage path for multiple cell substrates in nonvolatile memory devices

Abstract

A non-volatile memory device using existing row decoding circuitry to selectively provide a global erase voltage to at least one selected memory block in order to facilitate erasing of all the non-volatile memory cells of the at least one selected memory block. More specifically, the erase voltage is coupled to the cell body or substrate of memory cells of the at least one selected memory block, where the cell body is electrically isolated from the cell body of non-volatile memory cells in at least one other memory block. By integrating the erase voltage path with the existing row decoding circuitry used to drive row signals for a selected memory block, no additional decoding logic or circuitry is required for providing the erase voltage to the at least one selected memory block.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.