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:
Dec. 16, 2003
Filed:
May. 22, 2002
Applicant:
Inventors:
Gunther Lehmann, Poughkeepsie, NY (US);
Manfred Menke, Wolfratshausen, DE;
Assignee:
Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, DE;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G11C 7/00 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G11C 7/00 ;
Abstract
A semiconductor dynamic random access memory (DRAM) with a programmable memory refresh counter is presented. The counter permits the specification of portions of the DRAM to be refreshed, saving power and time over DRAMs that refresh the entire memory. The counter may be programmed with a wordline address at the beginning of a block of memory and subsequent refresh operations automatically increment or decrement the value in the counter. Additionally, blocks of the memory not being refreshed can be accessed (written or read), improving the utilization of the memory device.