Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Spansion Llc.

Cindy Sun

Zhizheng Liu

Shivananda Shetty

Gulzar Ahmed Kathawala

Richard M Fastow

Mark W Randolph

Yi He

Yoram Betser

James Minsu Pak

Amichai Givant

Harry Kuo

Pawan Kishore Singh

Amir Rochman

Tio Wei Neo

Stefano Amato

Jonas Neo

He Yi

Phuong Banh

Loi La

A non-volatile memory device and methods for operating the same are provided. The memory device may have multiple complementary memory cells. The method of blank check includes detecting a state value of each of the true and complementary transistors, generating an upper state value, Wherein a first predetermined amount of the true and complementary transistors have greater state values than the upper state value, generating a lower state value, wherein a second predetermined amount of the true and complementary transistors have less state values than the lower state value, generating a state value range based on a difference between the upper state value and the lower state value, and comparing the state value range to a threshold value to determine whether the plurality of complementary memory cells is in a blank state or a non-blank state. Other embodiments are also disclosed herein.

Non-volatile memory device and method of blank check

Selecting an array from among a plurality of arrays in a memory as a reference array. An exemplary method includes evaluating memory cells within the reference array to select a first reference cell associated with a first operation of the memory, and repeating the evaluating and the selecting to select a second reference cell from within the reference array, the second reference cell being associated with a second operation of the memory.

Screening for reference cells in a memory

Disclosed herein are system, method and computer program product embodiments for utilizing soft programming a nonvolatile memory. An embodiment operates by sequentially applying a single soft programming voltage pulse to all memory cells along each word line in the nonvolatile memory that fail soft programming verification in a first phase. This sequential application of the single soft programming voltage pulse in the first phase may repeat a predetermined number of times or until a threshold is met. Once the predetermined number of times completes, or the threshold is met, soft programming proceeds to a second phase where soft programming remains with each word line until all memory cells along the word line passes soft programming verification.

Multi-pass soft programming

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Cindy Sun