Local sensing of non-volatile memory

A non-volatile memory device comprising:

• a first array of memory cells, the first array of memory cells being divided into a plurality of partitions, each partition comprising a plurality of memory cells of the array, each memory cell being included in only one of the partitions;
• and
• a plurality of sensing circuit blocks, each sensing circuit block being coupled to a partition in the first array of memory cells and each partition in the first array of memory cells being coupled to only one sensing circuit block, each sensing circuit block including:
• a set of read sensing circuits that are utilized in read operations for the partition coupled to the sensing circuit block, and
• a set of verify sensing circuits that are utilized in verification in write operations for the partition coupled to the sensing circuit block.

A local sensing block to sense the contents of non-volatile memory cells, comprising:

• a plurality of read sensing circuits, the plurality of read sensing circuits sensing the contents of one or more memory cells during a read operation;
• a plurality of verify sensing circuits, the plurality of verify sensing circuits verifying the contents of one or more memory cells as part of a write operation;
• and
• a connection via a sense node to a first partition of a first array of memory cells, the first partition being one of a plurality of partitions of the array, each memory cell in the first array being included in only one of the partitions of the first array, the only memory cells in the first array that may be accessed by the plurality of read sensing circuits and the plurality of verify sensing circuits being memory cells within the first partition.

A method for sensing contents of non-volatile memory cells comprising:

• selecting a set of one or more memory cells within a memory array of a non-volatile memory device;
• choosing a first partition of memory cells within the non-volatile memory device that contains the set of memory cells, the non-volatile memory device comprising a plurality of partitions, the first partition including less than all of the memory cells in the memory array;
• and
• detecting the contents of the set of one or more memory cells using a set of local sensing circuits that are allocated to the partition of memory cells, the set of local sensing circuits detecting the contents of only memory cells that are within the first partition of memory cells.

A memory device comprising:

• a means for sensing the contents of a plurality of non-volatile memory cells within a first partition of an array of memory cells, the means being limited to sensing the contents of only memory cells in the first partition;
• a means for sensing the contents of a plurality of non-volatile memory cells within a second partition of the array of memory cells, the means being limited to sensing the contents of only memory cells in the second partition;
• and
• a means for choosing between sensed contents of memory cells within the first partition and sensed contents of memory cells within the second partition as an output of the memory device.