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:
Feb. 07, 2006
Filed:
Oct. 08, 2004
Roy E. Scheuerlein, Cupertino, CA (US);
Mark G. Johnson, Los Altos, CA (US);
Derek J. Bosch, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alper Ilkbahar, San Jose, CA (US);
J. James Tringali, Los Altos, CA (US);
Roy E. Scheuerlein, Cupertino, CA (US);
Mark G. Johnson, Los Altos, CA (US);
Derek J. Bosch, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alper Ilkbahar, San Jose, CA (US);
J. James Tringali, Los Altos, CA (US);
Matrix Semiconductor, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
The preferred embodiments described herein relate to a redundant memory structure using bad bit pointers. In one preferred embodiment, data is written in a first plurality of memory cells, and an error is detected in writing data in one of the memory cells. In response to the detected error, a pointer is written in a second plurality of memory cells, the pointer identifying which memory cell in the first plurality of memory cells contains the error. During a read operation, the data is read from the first plurality of memory cells, and the pointer is read from the second plurality of memory cells. From the pointer, the memory cell containing the error is identified, and the error is corrected. Other preferred embodiments are provided, and each of the preferred embodiments can be used alone or in combination with one another.