Atmel Corporation

Dixie Nguyen

Stephen Trinh

Danut Manea

Uday Mudumba

Erwin Castillon

On-Pong Roderick Ho

Dinu Patrascu

Sabina Centazzo

Systems and techniques for performing write operations on non-volatile memory are described. A described system includes a memory structure including non-volatile memory cells that are arranged on word lines and bit lines and a microcontroller that is communicatively coupled with the memory structure. The memory structure can include non-volatile memory cells that are arranged on word lines and bit lines. The microcontroller can be configured to receive data to write to the memory structure, write the data to the memory structure using a selected word line of the word lines, detect a failure to write the data, apply, based on the failure, a negative bias voltage to one or more unselected word lines of the word lines during a negative bias period, and write the data to the portion of the memory cells using the selected word line during the negative bias period.

Adaptive programming for non-volatile memory devices

An apparatus and method of speculatively decoding non-memory read commands. A command register and decoder, within the apparatus, compares high-order command bits provided on a serial bus with corresponding bits of recognized non-memory read commands. An early non-memory read command is asserted when incoming command bits match a non-memory read command. Early responsive data is prepared speculatively during the time the remainder of command bits is received and decoded. A determination of command speculation correctness is made after receipt of the full command. If the full command received is not the speculated non-memory read command, the prepared data is discarded. Earlier prepared data is produced as the subsystem response if the full command matches the speculative non-memory read command. For incoming commands with operands, such as an address, the same speculative determination based on high-order operand bits is performed.

Device and method for access time reduction by speculatively decoding non-memory read commands on a serial interface

A memory system incorporating redundancy utilizes a content addressable memory to monitor addresses during memory accesses. The content addressable memory provides a pointer to an alternate memory location when a previously determined faulty location is requested. Redundant memory cells are accessed by use of column redundancy information output from the content addressable memory. During a memory access cycle a register in the content addressable memory latches a memory address. The content addressable memory decodes the address and produces column redundancy information as an output. The column redundancy information is latched during a period complementary to the memory access cycle. By utilizing complementary memory access phases to latch memory addresses in contrast with a utilization of column redundancy information, a single set of registers may be used. Additionally, concurrent read and write operations are supported.

Compact column redundancy CAM architecture for concurrent read and write operations in multi-segment memory arrays

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Dixie Nguyen