Macronix International Co., Ltd.

Yi-Ti Wang

Hsueh-Yi Lee

Jer-Hao Hsu

Kuan-Yeu Chen

Yi Te Shih

Embodiments of addressing the programming disturb effect are shown. A medium voltage having a magnitude between the programming voltage and ground is applied to a metal bit line among the cells that are subject to the program disturb effect.

Method and apparatus for programming nonvolatile memory

A charge pump circuit comprises a first pump stage, including a first sub-pump coupled to a first pre-charge MOSFET transistor, wherein the first sub-pump is used to pump down a gate of the first pre-charge MOSFET transistor to thereby increase the pre-charge efficiency of the first pre-charge MOSFET transistor. The higher efficiency the pre-charge MOSFET is, the lower the gate level of a pass transistor is. Thus, the charge sharing efficiency becomes better, and the body effect will be eliminated. The following pump stage is the same as the first pump stage. In addition, this pre-charging is implemented by PMOSFET only; therefore, only a single well is needed and then a small layout area can be achieved. Consequently, a high efficiency negative pump can be obtained.

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Xinhua Town, Taiwan

Yi-Ti Wang