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US 8,897,073 B2Granted
NVM with charge pump and method therefor
AssigneeFreescale Semiconductor, Inc.
InventorsHoracio P. Gasquet, Jeffrey C. Cunningham
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A non-volatile memory device comprises an array of memory cells and a charge pump coupled to the memory cells. The charge pump is dynamically reconfigurable to operate in a bypass mode to provide a first voltage to the memory cells, a program mode to provide the first voltage to the memory cells, and an erase mode to provide a second voltage that has inverse polarity of the first voltage.
Claims14
A method of operating a non-volatile memory device, comprising:
- configuring a charge pump coupled to the non-volatile memory device to generate a first voltage of a first polarity during a program operation and a second voltage of a second polarity during an erase operation, wherein a magnitude of the second voltage is less than or equal to a magnitude of the first voltage;
- and
- configuring the charge pump to output the first voltage in a bypass mode during a stability capacitor charging state, wherein a stability capacitor is part of the charge pump and the charge pump is connected to the memory cells during the capacitor charging state.
A method of operating a non-volatile memory device, comprising:
- configuring a charge pump coupled to the non-volatile memory device to generate a first voltage of a first polarity during a program operation and a second voltage of a second polarity during an erase operation, wherein a magnitude of the second voltage is less than or equal to a magnitude of the first voltage;
- and
- operating the plurality of switches in the charge pump in a third configuration for a bypass mode in which the first voltage is provided to at least some of the memory cells in the non-volatile memory device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.