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US 8,576,633 B2Granted
1T smart write
AssigneeCypress Semiconductor Corporation
InventorsVenkatraman Prabhakar, Frederick Jenne
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The threshold voltages of particular nonvolatile memory cells on a word line are selectively increased on a column by column (cell by cell) basis. A selective program is performed on some of the cells, and simultaneously a program inhibit on other of the cells, resulting in all of the cells having a threshold voltage that falls between a minimum acceptable value and a maximum acceptable value.
Claims19
A method comprising:
- selectively increasing a threshold voltage of particular ones of a plurality of nonvolatile memory cells on a same word line, on a cell by cell basis, by performing a selective soft-program on a first subset of the cells simultaneously with a program inhibit on a second subset of the cells;
- reading back data from one or more of the cells with a margin mode word line voltage set to a target threshold voltage for the cells;
- and
- repeating the selective soft-program until the threshold voltage of each of the cells falls between a minimum acceptable value and a maximum acceptable value.
1 more element
A nonvolatile machine memory circuit, comprising:
- a plurality of memory cells;
- and
- logic to
- selectively increase a threshold voltage of a first subset of the cells on a word line on a cell by cell basis by performing a selective soft program on the first subset of the cells, while simultaneously performing a program inhibit on a second subset of the cells,
- read back data from one or more of the cells with a margin mode word line voltage set to a target threshold voltage for the cells, and
- repeat the selective soft program on the first subset of cells until the threshold voltage of each of the cells in the word line falls between a minimum acceptable value and a maximum acceptable value.
3 more elements
A method comprising:
- selectively increasing a threshold voltage of particular nonvolatile memory cells on a same word line, on a cell by cell basis, by repeatedly performing a selective soft-program on a first subset of the cells simultaneously with a program inhibit on a second subset of the cells on the same wordline;
- changing one or both of a soft program voltage level and a soft program interval between repetitions of the soft-program of the first subset of the cells;
- reading back data from the cells with margin mode word line voltage set to a value more negative than a target threshold voltage;
- and
- repeating the selective soft program until all of the cells have a threshold voltage that falls between a minimum acceptable value and a maximum acceptable value.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.