Programming interruption management
View Patent ↗The present disclosure is related to programming interruption management. An apparatus can be configured to detect an interruption during a programming operation and modify the programming operation to program a portion of the memory array to an uncorrectable state in response to detecting the interruption.
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a memory array; and
a controller coupled to the memory array, wherein the controller is configured to:
modify a programming operation to program a portion of the memory array to an uncorrectable state in response to detecting an interruption during the programming operation.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to detect the interruption during the programming operation by detecting a voltage drop below a threshold level.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to detect and flag each of a number of pages programmed to the uncorrectable state as being programmed in response to detecting the interruption in the programming operation.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to move data from the block having the portion of the memory array programmed to the uncorrectable state to a new block.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to detect pages of the portion of the memory array programmed to the uncorrectable state as being corrupt.
6. An apparatus, comprising:
a memory array; and
a controller coupled to the memory array, wherein the controller is configured to:
perform a programming operation, wherein the programing operation applies a modified programming signal to a portion of the memory array to program the portion of memory array to an uncorrectable state and wherein execution of the programming operation was incomplete on the portion of the memory array prior to applying the modified programming signal to the portion of the memory array.
7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the controller is configured apply the modified programming signal in response to detecting an interruption in the programming operation.
8. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the controller is configured to detect the uncorrectable state of the portion of the memory array by detecting a number of errors that is greater than which can be corrected by an error correction (ECC) operation.
9. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the controller is configured to apply the modified programming signal to program the lower page of the portion of the memory array.
10. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the controller is configured to skip applying the modified programming signal to a number of pages of the portion of the memory array that include an upper page flag indicating that an upper page programming operation has been performed.
11. A method for managing a programming interruption, comprising:
detecting an interruption in a programming operation; and
intentionally corrupting a number of pages of memory cells in response to detecting the interruption.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein intentionally corrupting the number of pages of memory cells includes applying a modified programming signal to the number of pages of memory cells that programs the number of pages of memory cells to an uncorrectable data state.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein intentionally corrupting the number of pages of memory cells includes applying the modified programming signal to the number of pages of memory cells that have completed a lower page programming process.
14. The method of claim 12 , further including applying the modified programming signal to program the number of pages to the highest voltage threshold state.
15. The method of claim 12 , wherein applying the modified programming signal causes a programming pattern of the programming operation to be lost.
16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the method includes detecting the number of pages programmed to the uncorrectable state as corrupted.
17. The method of claim 11 , wherein detecting the interruption in the programming operation includes detecting that a signal drops below a threshold voltage.
18. The method of claim 11 , wherein detecting the interruption in the programming operation includes detecting a power loss.
19. The method of claim 11 , wherein detecting the interruption in the programming operation includes detecting a signal toggle that indicates the programming operation cannot be completed.
20. The method of claim 11 , wherein the method includes moving data from a block containing the corrupt number of pages of memory cells using a wear leveling operation.