Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Sanguhn Cha

Sunghye Cho

Myungkyu Lee

Kijun Lee

Kiheung Kim

Sungrae Kim

Sungchul Park

Yesin Ryu

Hyojin Jung

Junhyung Kim

JunHyung Kim

Kyung-Soo Ha

Jaeyoun Youn

Uksong Kang

Kyungsoo Ha

Hyeran Kim

Hoyoung Song

Chisung Oh

Chanki Kim

Changyong Lee

Youngjin Cho

Chulwoo Park

Seongil O

Chankyung Kim

Youngcheon Kwon

Namsung Kim

Yeonggeol Song

Sungyong Seo

Hoiju Chung

Yoonna Oh

Hoon Shin

Hyungi Kim

Juseong Hwang

Hyejeong Hong

Deok-Gu Yoon

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array and a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) engine. The memory cell array includes a plurality of volatile memory cells coupled to respective ones of a plurality of word-lines and respective ones of a plurality of bit-lines. The CRC engine, during a memory operation on the memory cell array, detects an error in a main data and a system parity data provided from a memory controller external to the semiconductor memory device through a link, generates an error flag indicating whether the detected error corresponds to either a first type of error associated with the link or a second type of error associated with the volatile memory cells based on the system parity data and transmit the error flag to the memory controller.

Semiconductor memory device including a cyclic redundancy check engine and memory system including the same

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an error correction code (ECC) circuit, a fault address register, a scrubbing control circuit and a control logic circuit. The memory cell array includes memory cell rows. The scrubbing control circuit generates scrubbing addresses based on refresh operations performed on the memory cell array. The control logic circuit controls the ECC circuit such that the ECC circuit performs an error detection operation on a plurality of sub-pages in a first memory cell row to count a number of error occurrences, and determines whether to correct a codeword in which an error is detected based on the number of error occurrences. An uncorrected or corrected codeword is written back, and a row address of the first memory cell row may be stored in the fault address register as a row fault address based on the number of error occurrences.

Semiconductor memory devices and methods of operating semiconductor memory devices

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an error correction code (ECC) circuit, a fault address register and a control logic circuit. The memory cell array includes a plurality of memory cell rows. The scrubbing control circuit generates scrubbing addresses for performing a scrubbing operation on a first memory cell row based on refresh row addresses for refreshing the memory cell rows. The control logic circuit controls the ECC circuit such that the ECC circuit performs an error detection and correction operation on a plurality of sub-pages in the first memory cell row to count a number of error occurrences during a first interval and determines a sub operation in a second interval in the scrubbing operation based on the number of error occurrences in the first memory cell row.

A memory system includes a memory module having a plurality of memory devices therein. A memory controller is configured to transmit commands and addresses to the memory module in synchronization with a clock, input/output data to and from the memory module in synchronization with a data transfer clock, and perform system error correction operations on data read from the memory module. The plurality of memory devices perform on-die error correction operations, which are different from each other according to a physical location of the stored read data.

Memory systems having memory devices therein with enhanced error correction capability and methods of operating same

Semiconductor memory device and memory system including the same

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an error correction code (ECC) engine circuit, an error information register and a control logic circuit. The memory cell array includes memory cell rows. The control logic circuit controls the ECC engine circuit to generate an error generation signal based on performing a first ECC decoding on first sub-pages in a first memory cell row in a scrubbing operation and based on performing a second ECC decoding on second sub-pages in a second memory cell row in a normal read operation on the second memory cell row. The control logic circuit records error information in the error information register and controls the ECC engine circuit to skip an ECC encoding and an ECC decoding on a selected memory cell row of the first memory cell row and the second memory cell row based on the error information.

Semiconductor memory devices and memory systems

An error correction circuit includes ECC encoder and an ECC decoder. The ECC encoder generates, based on a first main data obtained by selectively shifting data bits of a main data based on a LSB of a row address, a parity data using an ECC and stores a codeword including the main data and the parity data in a target page. The ECC decoder generates a syndrome based on a second main data obtained by selectively shifting data bits of the main data based on the LSB of the row address, the parity data and a parity check matrix based on the ECC, and corrects a single bit error or corrects two bit errors when the two bit errors occur in adjacent two memory cells based on the syndrome. The mis-corrected bit is generated when the multiple error bits are present in the main data.

Error correction circuit of semiconductor memory device and semiconductor memory device including the same

An error correction circuit includes an error correction code (ECC) memory and an ECC engine. The ECC memory stores an ECC, which is at least partially represented by a generation matrix. The ECC engine generates parity data based on main data using the ECC, and detects and/or corrects at least one error bit in the main data read from the memory cell array using the parity data. The main data includes a plurality of data bits divided into a plurality of sub data units. The ECC includes a plurality of column vectors divided into a plurality of code groups corresponding to the sub data units. The column vectors have elements configured to gather a mis-corrected bit and multiple error bits in one symbol and the mis-corrected bit is generated due to the multiple error bits in the main data.

Semiconductor memory devices having enhanced error correction circuits therein

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an error correction circuit, an input/output (I/O) gating circuit and a control logic circuit. The memory cell array is coupled to word-line and bit-lines and is divided into sub array blocks. The error correction circuit generates parity data based on main data using an error correction code (ECC). The control logic circuit controls the error correction circuit and the I/O gating circuit based on a command and address. The control logic circuit stores the main data and the parity data in (k+1) target sub array blocks in the second direction among the sub array blocks, and controls the I/O gating circuit such that a portion of the (k+1) target sub array blocks store both of a portion of the main data and a portion of the parity data.

Semiconductor memory devices and memory systems with enhanced error detection and correction

A semiconductor memory device including: a buffer die; memory dies stacked on the buffer die; and TSVs, at least one of the memory dies includes: a memory cell array; an error correction code (ECC) engine; an error information register; and a control logic circuit configured to control the ECC engine to perform a read-modify-write operation, wherein the control logic circuit is configured to: record, in the error information register, a first address associated with a first codeword based on the an generation signal and a first syndrome obtained by an ECC decoding; and determine an error attribute of the first codeword based on a change of the first syndrome, recorded in the error information register, based on a plurality of read-modify-write operations.

Semiconductor memory devices

A memory controller controls a memory module including data chips and first and second parity chips. The memory controller includes an error correction code (ECC) engine. The ECC engine includes an ECC decoder and a memory to store a parity check matrix. The ECC decoder receives error information signals associated with the data chips, performs an ECC decoding on a codeword set from the memory module using the parity check matrix to generate a first syndrome and a second syndrome, and corrects bit errors in a user data set based on the error information signals and the second syndrome. The bit errors are generated by a row fault and uncorrectable using the first syndrome and the second syndrome. Each of the error information signals includes row fault information indicating whether the row fault occurs in at least one of memory cell rows in corresponding one of the data chips.

Memory controller and memory system including the same

A semiconductor memory device and a memory system including the same are provided. The semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array including memory blocks, a local parity memory block, and a register block. The memory blocks respectively store pieces of partial local data in response to a plurality of column selection signals, or a first partial global parity in response to a global parity column selection signal. The local parity memory block stores local parities of local data in response to the plurality of column selection signals, or a second partial global parity in response to the global parity column selection signal. The register block generates a global parity including the first partial global parities and the second partial global parity. Each piece of local data includes the partial local data, and the global parity is a parity of the pieces of local data and the local parities.

Semiconductor memory device, and memory system having the same

Growing community of inventors

Suwon-si, South Korea

Sanguhn Cha