Capacitive-Coupled Non-Volatile Thin-Film Transistor Strings in Three Dimensional Arrays
First Claim
1. A method for a system controller to rapidly determine the location of the most current version of a data file stored on one of many memory circuits, comprising:
- in each memory circuit;
(a) associating a designated one or more pages of the data file with a unique identifier index number generated by the system controller and appending the unique identifier index number to the data file; and
(b) associating a time-stamp with the unique identifier index number every time the data file is stored or updated in the memory circuit, wherein all unique identifier index numbers for all files stored in each memory circuit are stored in a lookup table in the memory circuit with the latest time-stamp and the location in the memory circuit at which the file is stored;
sending from the system controller a search request which is broadcast simultaneously to one or more of the memory circuits, the search request specifying unique identifier index number of the file to be located; and
in each memory circuit, using exclusive-or (XOR) circuits or content addressable memory (CAM) circuits to compare the broadcasted unique identifier index number with the unique identifier index numbers stored in the look-up table of the memory circuit and reporting to the system controller when a match has been found along with its time-stamp and location, wherein when more than one match is found, the system controller selects from the reported locations the location whose associated time-stamp is the latest among the time-stamps reported.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Multi-gate NOR flash thin-film transistor (TFT) string arrays are organized as three dimensional stacks of active strips. Each active strip includes a shared source sublayer and a shared drain sublayer that is connected to substrate circuits. Data storage in the active strip is provided by charge-storage elements between the active strip and a multiplicity of control gates provided by adjacent local word-lines. The parasitic capacitance of each active strip is used to eliminate hard-wire ground connection to the shared source making it a semi-floating, or virtual source. Pre-charge voltages temporarily supplied from the substrate through a single port per active strip provide the appropriate voltages on the source and drain required during read, program, program-inhibit and erase operations. TFTs on multiple active strips can be pre-charged separately and then read, programmed or erased together in a massively parallel operation.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method for a system controller to rapidly determine the location of the most current version of a data file stored on one of many memory circuits, comprising:
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in each memory circuit; (a) associating a designated one or more pages of the data file with a unique identifier index number generated by the system controller and appending the unique identifier index number to the data file; and (b) associating a time-stamp with the unique identifier index number every time the data file is stored or updated in the memory circuit, wherein all unique identifier index numbers for all files stored in each memory circuit are stored in a lookup table in the memory circuit with the latest time-stamp and the location in the memory circuit at which the file is stored; sending from the system controller a search request which is broadcast simultaneously to one or more of the memory circuits, the search request specifying unique identifier index number of the file to be located; and in each memory circuit, using exclusive-or (XOR) circuits or content addressable memory (CAM) circuits to compare the broadcasted unique identifier index number with the unique identifier index numbers stored in the look-up table of the memory circuit and reporting to the system controller when a match has been found along with its time-stamp and location, wherein when more than one match is found, the system controller selects from the reported locations the location whose associated time-stamp is the latest among the time-stamps reported. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A memory circuit organized into a plurality of memory pages, comprising control circuitry for (a) associating a designated one or more memory pages to a data file and associating with the data file a unique identifier index number generated by a system controller;
- and associating a time-stamp with the unique identifier index number every time the data file is stored or updated in the memory circuit, wherein all unique identifier index numbers for all files stored in the memory circuit are stored in a lookup table in the memory circuit with the latest time-stamp and the location in the memory circuit at which the file is stored.
- View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
Specification