Intel Corporation

Rodney R Rozman

Mickey L Fandrich

Jerry A Kreifels

Richard J Durante

Vishram P Dalvi

Christopher John Haid

Sean Stephen Eilert

Jahanshir J Javanifard

Sanjay S Talreja

Shekoufeh Qawami

Peter K Hazen

Jeffrey J Peterson

Jeff Evertt

Joseph W Tsang

Mark E Bauer

Duane R Mills

Mamun Ur Rashid

Sherif R Sweha

Charles W Brown

Geoffrey A Gould

Alan E Baker

Bharat M Pathak

David A Leak

Thomas C Price

Chakravarthy Yarlagadda

Fasil G Bekele

Glenn J Hinton

Steven E Wells

Rajesh Sundaram

Robert N Hasbun

Richard D Pashley

Johnny Javanifard

Mark D Winston

Ranjeet Alexis

Kevin W Frary

David M Brown

Phillip M Kwong

Keith F Underwood

Sunil Gupta

Duane F Mills

Michael P Vital

George Blanchard

Glen Hawk

Gary J Gallagher

Vishram Prakash Dalvi

Some embodiments of the invention may use a single control line signal as both a wake up signal and as an indicator of a device selection command. In a command-based protocol on a non-volatile memory bus, a host memory controller may assert a signal on a control line to bring all the memory devices on the bus into an operational mode, while concurrently placing a device selection command on the input/output lines. The memory device selected by the selection command may remain operational to perform a sequence of operations as directed by the host controller. The remaining (non-selected) memory devices may return to a sleep mode until a new signal on the control line is received, indicating a new selection command.

Power saving in NAND flash memory

Some embodiments of the invention pertain to a memory system containing multiple memory devices, in which one or multiple ones of the memory devices may flexibly be selected at one time for a common operation to be performed by all the selected devices concurrently.

Flexible selection command for non-volatile memory

A flash memory device including a first memory array, a control circuit coupled to the first memory array, and a second independent memory array coupled to the control circuit. The first memory array includes a plurality of memory blocks each having a memory cell. The memory cell may be a nonvolatile flash memory cell. The control circuit controls the programming, erasing, and reading of the memory cells. The second memory array includes a plurality of block lock-bits each corresponding to one of the plurality of memory blocks. The state of each block lock-bit indicates whether the memory cell in the corresponding memory block is locked. The second memory array may also include a master lock-bit that indicates whether the block lock-bits are locked.

Block locking apparatus for flash memory

Some embodiments of the invention use a command-based interface to control reads and writes with non-volatile memory devices. This may reduce the number of pins that are needed on each integrated circuit, and therefore reduce the cost and size of those integrated circuits. In some embodiments, an on-die cache buffer may be used to buffer data transfers between a high-speed memory bus and the slower speed non-volatile array.

Command-based control of NAND flash memory

A system, apparatus, method and article to encode, clock recover, and sample data bits are described. The apparatus may include a pulsed digital module comprising a first clock input, a first data input, a data output, and a reset input. The first clock input to receive an encoded signal from a single-wire. The encoded signal comprising a serial bit sequence comprising a clock signal embedded encoded data bit. The pulsed digital module to capture an edge of the encoded signal at the first clock input in accordance with a logic level coupled to the first data input. A delay module comprising a delay input is coupled to the data output and a delay output is coupled to the reset input. The delay module to delay the captured edge by a predetermined period and to generate a delay signal from the delay output after the predetermined period. The pulsed digital module is to generate a first clock edge of the sampling clock at the data output after the predetermined period. An apparatus, system, and method to embed a sampling clock signal via an encoded signal comprising n bits and to transmit the encoded signal to a single-wire as a serial bit sequence of n bits. The encoded signal represents a logic bit having an encoding clock period T. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Encoding, clock recovery, and data bit sampling system, apparatus, and method

Various embodiments of the invention connect multiple non-volatile memory controllers in a daisy chain manner, so the multiple memory devices may be accessed from a common host controller. Data and control signals may be daisy-chained in this way, so that many memory devices may be connected together, while not increasing the loading on individual signals lines. Transfer with the various memory devices may be interleaved, so that the relatively slow times of the memory devices doesn't slow down the overall throughout of the memory stem.

High speed interface for non-volatile memory

In various embodiments, a plurality of non-volatile memory devices, such as NAND flash memory device, may be connected to a host controller device in a fanned out configuration that allows each of the plurality of memory devices to perform read and/or write operations simultaneously. Each non-volatile memory device may include high speed input circuitry and high speed output circuitry so that transfers to and from memory are not limited by the speed of the flash memory read/write interface.

High speed fanned out system architecture and input/output circuits for non-volatile memory

A status register for a memory device. The status register provides a programming suspend status signal and a protection status signal. The programming suspend status signal indicates whether a programming operation is suspended. If the processor knows that a programming operation to a specific memory location is suspended, then the processor may request that a data modification operation to another memory location be performed while the programming operation is suspended. The protection status signal indicates whether an attempted data modification operation failed due to a protected memory block versus another type of device failure. Protecting or locking a memory block prevents the modification of data stored in a particular memory block.

Programming suspend status indicator for flash memory

Programming protection status indicators for flash memory

Systems including a bit sequence program controller to program in sequence non-volatile memory cells in an array of programmable non-volatile memory cells. The bit sequence program controller determines the bits that require programming by comparing the bits of the program word with an erased logical state of the array of programmable non-volatile memory cells. The bit sequence program controller further indicates which non-volatile memory cells in a word of non-volatile memory cells in the array of non-volatile memory cells require programming to match the program word. The bit sequence program controller counts the number of the bits that require programming in the program word by counting the number of bits of the program word that are not in an erased logical state to determine when the programming should be completed.

Systems with non-volatile memory bit sequence program control

A bit sequence program controller to program in sequence non-volatile memory cells in an array of programmable non-volatile memory cells. The bit sequence program controller determines the bits that require programming by comparing the bits of the program word with an erased logical state of the array of programmable non-volatile memory cells. The bit sequence program controller further indicates which non-volatile memory cells in a word of non-volatile memory cells in the array of non-volatile memory cells require programming to match the program word. The bit sequence program controller counts the number of the bits that require programming in the program word by counting the number of bits of the program word that are not in an erased logical state to determine when the programming should be completed.

Method and apparatus for non-volatile memory bit sequence program controller

A method and apparatus for synchronizing a micro controller in a flash memory device. An interface circuit receives a user command over a host bus. A synchronizer circuit enables an oscillator circuit if the user command specifies an operation on a flash cell array. The oscillator circuit generates a clock signal for synchronizing the micro controller. After completion of the program or erase operation, the synchronizer circuit disables the oscillator circuit if a subsequent user command that specifies another program or erase operation for the micro controller is not pending.

Synchronizing user commands to a microcontroller in a memory device

A method and apparatus suspend a program operation in a nonvolatile writeable memory. The nonvolatile writeable memory includes a memory array, a command register and memory array control circuitry. The command register decodes a program suspend command and provides a suspend signal as an output. The memory array control circuitry is coupled to receive the suspend signal from the command register. The memory array control circuitry performs a program operation in which data is written to the memory array. The memory array control circuitry suspends the program operation upon receiving the suspend signal.

Nonvolatile writeable memory with program suspend command

A memory system having memory cells for storing one of a plurality of threshold levels to store more than a single bit per cell is disclosed. The memory system contains a switch control to permit selection of an operating mode including a multi-level cell mode and a standard cell mode. The memory system further includes a reading circuit to read a single bit per cell when operating in the standard cell mode, and to read multiple bits of data per memory cell when operating in the multi-level cell mode. A program circuit programs a single bit of data per memory cell for addressed memory cells when operating in the standard cell mode, and programs multiple bits of data per memory cell for addressed memory cells when operating in the multi-level cell mode.

Dynamic single bit per cell to multiple bit per cell memory

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Placerville, CA, United States of America

Rodney R Rozman