Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Sungrae Kim

Kijun Lee

Sunghye Cho

Myungkyu Lee

Yeonggeol Song

Sanguhn Cha

Hyeran Kim

Chisung Oh

Gilyoung Kang

Kiheung Kim

Changkyu Seol

Jinhoon Jang

Chanki Kim

Changyong Lee

Isak Hwang

Yujung Song

Junghwan Choi

Eunae Lee

Sukhan Lee

Junhyung Kim

Yesin Ryu

Hoyoun Kim

JunHyung Kim

Wonyoung Choi

Sunggi Ahn

SungYong Cho

Jeongseok Park

Suhun Lim

Minho Maeing

A memory device, an operating method of the memory device, and a test system including the memory device. The memory device may include a decoder group configured to receive a plurality of codewords including a plurality of symbols from outside of the memory device and to decode the plurality of codewords into data patterns, a memory cell array configured to store the data patterns received from the decoder group and including a plurality of memory cells, and an encoder configured to encode the data patterns into the plurality of codewords including the plurality of symbols. The plurality of codewords may include illegal codewords and normal codewords, and the decoder group may be further configured to convert the illegal codewords among the plurality of codewords into fixed patterns, and the encoder may be configured to output the plurality of codewords to the outside of the memory device.

Memory devices, operating methods of the memory devices, and test systems including the memory devices

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an on-die error correction code (ECC) engine and a control logic circuit. The on-die ECC engine includes a first latch and a second latch. The control logic circuit sets the semiconductor memory device to a test mode in response to a first mode register set command. The on-die ECC engine, in the test mode, cuts off a connection with the memory cell array, receives a test data, stores the test data in the first latch, performs an ECC decoding on the test data stored in the first latch and a test parity data, stored in the second latch in response to a read command and provides an external device with a severity signal indicating whether the test data and the test parity data includes at least one error bit and the at least one error bit is correctable.

Semiconductor memory device including an on-die ECC engine

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 memory system includes a host system having a memory controller therein, which is configured to generate a command address signal. The memory controller includes a first bit signal generator configured to generate a data signal as a plurality of data bits, a second bit signal generator configured to generate a command address bus inversion bit (CABIB) having a high or low logic level that is a function of a number of data bits within the data signal having a predetermined logic level, and a parity bit generator configured to set a parity signal to a first logic level when a total number of data bits within the data signal and the CABIB having a high logic level is an even number. A storage system is also provided, which is configured to write or read data in response to the command address signal received from the host system. The memory controller is configured to set the CABIB to a high logic level when: (i) 'n', which is a number of bits included in the command address signal, is a positive integer greater than one, and (ii) a number of data bits within the data signal having a low logic level is greater than or equal to (n/2)−1.

Memory systems and controllers for generating a command address and methods of operating same

An error correction circuit, including an error correction code (ECC) encoder configured to generate parity data corresponding to main data based on a parity generation matrix, and to output a codeword including the main data and the parity data to a plurality of memory devices; and an ECC decoder configured to: read the codeword from the plurality of memory devices, generate a syndrome corresponding to the codeword based on a parity check matrix, detect an error pattern based on the syndrome, generate a plurality of estimation syndromes corresponding to the error pattern using a plurality of partial sub-matrices included in the parity check matrix, and correct an error included in the read codeword based on a result of a comparison between the syndrome and the plurality of estimation syndromes.

Error correction circuit, memory system, and error correction method

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array and an on-die error correction code (ECC) engine. The on-die ECC engine, during a write operation, generates a second main data by encoding a first main data with a random binary code, performs an ECC encoding on the second main data to generate a parity data and stores the second main data and the parity data in a target page in the memory cell array. The on-die ECC engine, during a read operation, reads the second main data and the parity data from the target page, performs an ECC decoding on the second main data based on the parity data to generate a syndrome in parallel with generating the first main data by encoding the second main data with the random binary code and corrects at least one error bit in the first main data based on the syndrome.

Semiconductor memory device and method of operating semiconductor memory device

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, a link error correction code (ECC) engine and on-die ECC engine. The memory cell array includes a plurality of volatile memory cells. The link ECC engine provides a main data by performing a first ECC decoding on a first codeword including the main data and a first parity data, and generates a first error flag based on a result of the first ECC decoding. The on-die ECC engine generates a second parity data by performing a first ECC encoding on the main data, provides a target page of the memory cell array with a second codeword including the main data and the second parity data in response to the first error flag being deactivated or generates a third codeword by changing at least one of bits of the second codeword in response to the first error flag being deactivated.

Semiconductor memory devices

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 transmitter includes an encoder configured to divide a first number of binary input bits of an input data signal into a first bit group and a second bit group, generate a first intermediate bit group and a second intermediate bit group by manipulating the first bit group and the second bit group differently based on a value of the first bit group, and generate a first symbol group and a second symbol group by encoding the first intermediate bit group and the second intermediate bit group, each of the first symbol group and the second symbol group including a plurality of symbols, and each of the plurality of symbols having three different voltage levels. The transmitter includes a driver configured to generate an output data signal by concatenating the first symbol group and the second symbol group.

Transmitter and receiver for 3-level pulse amplitude modulation signaling and system including the same

An operating method of a memory device includes storing position information regarding a codeword including an erasure and erasure information including position information regarding the erasure in a memory region, loading the position information regarding the codeword to a row decoder and a column decoder, determining whether a read address corresponding to a read instruction is identical to the position information regarding the codeword including the erasure, in response to the read instruction from a host, transmitting the position information of the erasure to an error correction code (ECC) decoder, when the read address is identical to the position information regarding the codeword including the erasure, and correcting, by the ECC decoder, an error in a codeword received from a memory cell array using the position information regarding the erasure.

Memory device and operating method thereof

A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array, an on-die error correction code (ECC) engine, and a control logic circuit. The on-die ECC engine, based on an ECC, in a write operation, performs an ECC encoding on main data to generate first parity data, selectively replaces a portion of the first parity data with a poison flag to generate second parity data based on a poison mode signal, provides the main data to a normal cell region in a target page of the memory cell array, and provides the first parity data to a parity cell region in the target page or provides the poison flag and the second parity data to the parity cell region. The control logic circuit controls the on-die ECC engine and generates the poison mode signal, based on a command and an address from a memory controller.

Semiconductor memory devices and memory systems

A semiconductor memory device includes a buffer die and a plurality of memory dies. Each of the memory dies includes a memory cell array, an error correction code (ECC) engine and a test circuit. The memory cell array includes a plurality of memory cell rows, each including a plurality of volatile memory cells. The test circuit, in a test mode, generates a test syndrome and an expected decoding status flag indicating error status of the test syndrome, receives test parity data generated by the ECC engine based on the test syndrome and a decoding status flag indicating error status of the test parity data, and determines whether the ECC engine has a defect based on comparison of the test syndrome and the test parity data and a comparison of the expected decoding status flag and the decoding status flag.

Semiconductor memory devices with ECC engine defect determination based on test syndrome, test parity, expected decoding status and received decoding status

A semiconductor memory device includes a buffer die and a plurality of memory dies. An error correction code (ECC) engine in one of the memory dies performs an RS encoding on a main data to generate a parity data and performs a RS decoding, using a parity check matrix, on the main data and the parity data. The parity check matrix includes sub matrixes and each of the sub matrixes corresponds to two different symbols. Each of the sub matrixes includes two identity sub matrixes and two same alpha matrixes, the two identity sub matrixes are disposed in a first diagonal direction of the sub matrix and the two same alpha matrixes are disposed in a second diagonal direction. A number of high-level value elements in a y-th row of the parity check matrix is the same as a number of high-level value elements in a (y+p)-th row.

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Seoul, South Korea

Sungrae Kim