Patent · US Expired

System and method for selecting shorted wordlines of an array having dual wordline drivers

US5898637A · kind A · utility

42Cited by
3References
54Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 6, 1997
Grant dateApr 27, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 6, 2017

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11C16/08
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A memory system including an array of memory cells connected along wordlines and bitlines, wordline driver circuitry for driving at least two selected wordlines simultaneously in response to multirow selection bits, and selection bit circuitry for asserting multirow selection bits to the wordline driver circuitry in response to address bits (or address bits and control bits) to cause simultaneous selection of a target wordline and at least one other wordline shorted with the target wordline, and wordline selection methods performed by such a system. Preferably, the selection bit circuitry includes a predecoder implemented as a logic circuit, and the wordline driver circuitry includes a row decoder, a set of wordline drivers for driving even-numbered wordlines, and another set of wordline drivers for driving odd-numbered wordlines. The predecoder preferably includes an odd wordline predecoder for asserting selection bits for selecting at least one odd wordline of an erase block, and an even wordline predecoder for asserting selection bits for selecting at least one even wordline of the erase block. The system preferably includes a controller which generates a set of address bits for…

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