Redundant wordline deactivation scheme
AssigneeInfineon Technologies AG
InventorsMartin Versen, Peter Thwaite
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for reducing power consumption of a memory device. The method includes initiating a precharge operation. The precharge operation includes driving one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage. The method also includes identifying one or more defective wordlines and, during the precharge operation, driving the identified defective word lines to the precharge voltage.
Claims32
A method for reducing power consumption of a memory device, comprising:
- initiating a precharge operation, wherein the precharge operation comprises driving one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage;
- identifying one or more defective wordlines;
- and
- during the precharge operation, performing one of:
- driving the identified defective wordlines to the precharge voltage;
- and
- electrically isolating the identified defective wordlines.
A memory device comprising:
- one or more bitlines;
- one or more defective wordlines;
- and
- circuitry configured to:
- initiate a precharge operation, wherein the precharge operation comprises driving the one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage;
- identify one or more defective wordlines;
- and
- during the precharge operation, perform one of:
- drive the identified defective wordlines to the precharge voltage;
- and
- electrically isolate the identified defective wordlines.
A memory device comprising:
- one or more bitlines;
- one or more defective wordlines;
- and
- means for controlling configured to:
- initiate a precharge operation, wherein the precharge operation comprises driving the one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage;
- identify one or more defective wordlines;
- and
- during the precharge operation, perform one of:
- drive the identified defective wordlines to the precharge voltage;
- and
- electrically isolated the identified defective wordlines.
A method for reducing power consumption of a memory device, comprising:
- detecting one or more defective wordlines in the memory device;
- storing address information identifying each of the one or more defective wordlines,
- initiating a precharge operation, wherein the precharge operation comprises driving one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage;
- and
- during the precharge operation, identifying the one or more defective wordlines using the stored address information and performing one of:
- driving the identified one or more defective wordlines to the precharge voltage;
- and
- electrically isolating the identified one or more defective wordlines from a wordline off voltage.
A memory device comprising:
- a plurality of normal wordlines;
- one or more redundant wordlines used to replace one or more defective normal wordlines;
- repair circuitry configured to store information identifying the one or more defective normal wordlines and the one or more redundant wordlines used to replace the one or more defective normal wordlines;
- precharge circuitry configured to initiate a precharge operation;
- bitline control circuitry configured to drive one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage during the precharge operation;
- repaired wordline deactivation circuitry configured to identify the one or more defective wordlines using the stored information and, during the precharge operation, drive the identified one or more defective wordlines to the precharge voltage.
A method for reducing power consumption of a memory device, comprising:
- detecting one or more defective wordlines in the memory device;
- storing address information identifying each of the one or more defective wordlines,
- initiating a precharge operation, wherein the precharge operation comprises driving one or more bitlines to a precharge voltage;
- and
- during the precharge operation, identifying the one or more defective wordlines using the stored address information and electrically isolating the identified one or more defective wordlines.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.