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:
Nov. 23, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 23, 2002
Khaled Boulos, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Shailesh Shah, San Jose, CA (US);
Carlos Awong, San Francisco, CA (US);
Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
In the present invention a method and circuit are shown to protect flash memory from data corruption during a rapid power down. A circuit element detect the drop in power voltage and signals that any write operation being performed be switched into a programming phase, and at the same time increase the programming voltage to the flash memory to significantly reduce programming time. If the power drop occurs during an erase phase of a write operation, the erase operation is switched to a program operation using old data to program erased cells. If the power drop occurs during a programming phase of the write operation, the programming phase is continued but at a faster rate.