Patent · US Expired

Technique for reconfiguring a high density memory

US5691945A · kind A · utility

64Cited by
5References
25Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 1, 1996
Grant dateNov 25, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 1, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11C8/12
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A flexible technique for improving yield of manufacturing of high density of memory devices, such as flash EEPROM, involves reconfiguring an integrated circuit memory array having a plurality of sectors selected by an address decoder in response to an N bit field in an address. If defective sectors are detected in the array, it is partitioned to disable defective sectors by configuring a sector decoder to prevent access to the defective sectors while maintaining sequential addressing remaining sectors in the array. The step of partitioning includes configuring the sector decoder to replace a defective sector in one half of the array by another sector in the other half of the array having N-m of the N address bits in common with the defective sector when m is between 1 and N-1.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.