Refreshing non-volatile semiconductor memory by reading without rewriting
AssigneeWestern Digital Technologies, Inc.
InventorAlan Chingtao Kan
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Abstract
A non-volatile semiconductor memory is disclosed comprising a first memory device including a plurality of memory segments, and control circuitry operable to determine whether a memory segment in the first memory device needs refreshing, and when the memory segment needs refreshing, read data from the memory segment into a data register without rewriting the data.
Claims18
A non-volatile semiconductor memory comprising a first memory device including a plurality of memory segments, and control circuitry operable to:
- determine whether a memory segment in the first memory device needs refreshing;
- and
- when the memory segment needs refreshing, read data from the memory segment into a data register without rewriting the data,
- wherein the first memory device comprises the data register, and when refreshing the memory segment the control circuitry does not read the data from the data register.
A method of operating a non-volatile semiconductor memory comprising a first memory device including a plurality of memory segments, the method comprising:
- determining whether a memory segment in the first memory device needs refreshing;
- and
- when the memory segment needs refreshing, reading data from the memory segment into a data register without rewriting the data,
- wherein the first memory device comprises the data register, and when refreshing the memory segment the data is not read from the data register.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.