Adaptive Temperature Compensation for Multi-Plane Program Termination
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Solution Overview
Problem
As memory cells decrease in size and memory arrays increase in density, maintaining data integrity becomes challenging due to manufacturing defects such as shorting between word lines, which are often not detected until after programming, leading to data corruption.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an early program termination process during multi-plane programming that adjusts the maximum loop delta limit based on temperature, allowing for adaptive termination if defects are detected, ensuring data integrity by terminating programming on slower planes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If memory cells are scaled down to increase density, then storage capacity is improved, but manufacturing defects such as word line shorting increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary detection of manufacturing defects during the programming process by monitoring program loop counts across multiple planes. When a defect is detected (indicated by excessive loop delta between planes), the system terminates programming early before data corruption can occur, thus preventing reliability issues before they manifest.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring the program loop count difference (loop delta) between multiple planes during programming. This real-time feedback mechanism allows the system to detect when a plane is taking significantly longer to program, indicating a potential manufacturing defect, and respond by terminating the programming operation.
2Productivity
If programming continues on all planes simultaneously, then productivity is improved, but data corruption risk increases due to undetected defects
Solution Approach 1:
The system monitors program loop counts across multiple planes simultaneously and uses feedback from the loop delta calculation to detect defects. When the difference in loop counts between planes exceeds a threshold, the system terminates programming on affected planes, preventing data corruption while maintaining high productivity on healthy planes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent divides the memory array into multiple planes that can be programmed independently. By segmenting the programming operation across planes, the system can continue programming healthy planes even when one plane exhibits defects, thus maintaining overall productivity while preventing data corruption on affected segments.
3Reliability
If early termination is implemented to detect defects, then data integrity is improved, but programming time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs partial programming by monitoring only the loop delta between planes and terminating early when defects are detected, rather than completing full programming cycles on all planes. This partial action approach detects defects efficiently with minimal time penalty, as the monitoring overhead is small compared to full programming operations.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus is provided that includes a control circuit coupled to a plurality of non-volatile memory cells. The control circuit is configured to perform a program-verify iteration on a first set of the non-volatile memory cells and a second set of the non-volatile memory cells in a plurality of program loops, determine that at least one of the first set of the non-volatile memory cells and the second set of the non-volatile memory cells verification to a programmed state in a first number of program loops, and compare a difference between the first number of program loops and the second number of program loops to an adaptive maximum loop delta limit. The adaptive maximum loop delta limit varies as a function of temperature.