Preventing erase disturb in nand

Abstract

Technology is disclosed herein for preventing erase disturb in NAND. Erase voltages are applied to a source line and bit lines associated with selected memory cells, while applying an erase enable voltage to word lines connected to the selected cells. Preventing erase disturb may include raising the channel potential of unselected memory cells to a source line voltage that has a sufficiently low magnitude to not erase the unselected cells given a voltage on word lines connected to the unselected cells. The unselected cells share bit lines with the selected cells and may also share word lines. Preventing erase disturb may also include applying voltages to the select transistors that prevent the erase voltage from passing from the shared bit lines to the channels of the unselected cells. The voltages decrease from the bit lines to the unselected memory cells and may prevent GIDL generation. Current consumption is kept low.