Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Ulsi Engineering Corp.

Hitachi Tohbu Semiconductor, Ltd.

Michiko Odagiri

Takeshi Furuno

Masashi Wada

Kazunori Furusawa

Masahito Takahashi

A batch erasable single chip nonvolatile memory device and a method therefor of using the same provided with memory cells which are adapted to execute an erase operation by ejecting an electric charge, accumulated at floating gates by a program operation (including a pre-write operation) carries out, in sequence a first operation for reading memory cells of an erase unit and carrying out a pre-write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells at the floating gates of which electric charge is not stored, a second operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a high speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively large energy under a relatively large erase reference voltage, a third operation for carrying out a read operation of said all erased nonvolatile memory cells and a write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells which are adapted to have a relatively low threshold voltage, and a fourth operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a low speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively small energy under a relatively small erase reference voltages, or is provided with an automatic erasing circuit for executing these operations.

Batch erasable single chip nonvolatile memory device and erasing method

A batch erasable nonvolatile memory device and an apparatus using the same provided with memory cells which are adapted to execute an erase operation by ejecting an electric charge, accumulated at floating gates by a program operation (including a pre-write operation), carries out, in sequence, a first operation for reading memory cells of an erase unit and carrying out a pre-write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells at the floating gates of which electric charge is not stored, a second operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a high speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively large energy under a relatively large erase reference voltage, a third operation for carrying out a read operation of said all erased nonvolatile memory cells and a write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells which are adapted to have a relatively low threshold voltage, and a fourth operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a low speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively small energy under a relatively small erase reference voltage, or is provided with an automatic erasing circuit for executing these operations.

Batch erasable nonvolatile memory device and erasing method

A batch erasable nonvolatile memory device and an apparatus using the same provided with memory cells which are adapted to execute an erase operation by a ejecting an electric charge accumulated at floating gates by program operation (including a pre-write operation), carries out, in sequence, a first operation for reading memory cells of an erase unit and carrying out a pre-write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells at the floating gates of which electric charge is not stored, a second operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a high speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively large energy under a relatively large erase reference voltage, a third operation for carrying out a read operation of said all erased nonvolatile memory cells and a write operation on those nonvolatile memory cells which are adapted to have a relatively low threshold voltage, and a fourth operation for carrying out a batch erase operation at a low speed for the nonvolatile memory cells of said erase unit with a relatively small energy under a relatively small erase reference voltage, or is provided with an automatic erasing circuit for executing these operations.

Growing community of inventors

Kuroishi, Japan

Michiko Odagiri