Methods of driving a memory

摘要

Methods of driving a memory include erasing a plurality of memory cells of a memory device, testing whether the memory cells have been erased, and programming the memory cells without erasing the memory cells again if more than a predetermined percentage of the memory cells, but less than all of the memory cells, were successfully erased.

主权项

1. A method of driving a memory device, the method comprising:
erasing a plurality of memory cells of the memory device wherein each of the memory cells comprises a plurality of writable voltage distributions, and wherein the memory cells are erased using an erase pulse having a pulse time that is selected to erase less than all of the writable voltage distributions; checking whether the memory cells have been erased; determining that more than a predetermined percentage of the memory cells but less than all of the memory cells were erased; and programming data into the memory cells of the memory device without performing an intervening erase operation on the plurality of memory cells in response to the determination that more than the predetermined percentage of the memory cells but less than all of the memory cells were erased.