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US 7,924,614 B2Granted
Memory and boundary searching method thereof
AssigneeMacronix International Co., Ltd.
InventorsChung-Kuang Chen, Han-Sung Chen, Chun-Hsiung Hung
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A memory and a boundary searching method thereof are provided therein. When searching a boundary of a threshold voltage distribution of the memory, data errors resulted from tail bits of the memory would be corrected. Therefore, a sensing window could be broader, and the boundary of the threshold voltage distribution could be determined precisely.
Claims10
A method for searching a boundary of a threshold voltage distribution of a memory, the memory comprising a plurality of memory cells and an error correction code (ECC) circuit, the method comprising steps of:
- applying an initial word line voltage to the memory cells for reading the memory cells;
- enabling the ECC circuit to correct data read from the memory cells;
- checking whether the data corrected by the ECC circuit are accurate or not;
- and
- adjusting the word line voltage if all of the data corrected by the ECC circuit are accurate.
2 more elements
A memory, comprising:
- a plurality of memory cells for storing data;
- a word line voltage regulator coupled to the memory cells, for applying a word line voltage to the memory cells to read data from the memory cells;
- a sense amplifier, coupled to the memory cells, for sensing read-out currents from the memory cells so as to output the data of the memory cells;
- an error correction code (ECC) circuit coupled to the sense amplifier, for correcting the data of the memory cells;
- and
- a boundary searching circuit coupled to the ECC circuit, for checking whether the data corrected by the ECC circuit are accurate or not, and controlling the word line voltage regulator to adjust the word line voltage if all of the data corrected by the ECC circuit are accurate.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.