The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 11, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 22, 1997
Andy Teng-Feng Yu, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Vikram Kowshik, San Jose, CA (US);
Programmable Microelectronics Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A semiconductor memory includes a plurality of memory cells and a corresponding plurality of page buffers. When writing to a selected row of cells, input data is first latched into the page buffers. The cells in the selected row are then programmed according to the data latched within the page buffers. After programming, data stored in the cells is forwarded to the corresponding page buffers. If, for each cell, the data stored in the cell matches the data latched in its corresponding page buffer, the page buffer is reset. The selected row of cells are subsequently re-programmed, whereby only cells corresponding to those page buffers which have not been reset are re-programmed. In this manner, cells properly programmed during the first program operation are not re-programmed during program verify operations.