Patent ID: 11881271
Assignee: SANDISK TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 15:
16. A method of reading data from a non-volatile memory structure, the method comprising:
raising voltages of word lines to one or more positive voltages, the word lines including a selected word line and unselected word lines, the word lines are connected to NAND strings of a block of non-volatile memory cells of the non-volatile memory structure, the NAND strings have drain side select gates and source side select gates, the block includes multiple sub-blocks, the word lines are connected to NAND strings of all sub-blocks of the block, the source side select gates for each sub-block can be controlled independently from source side select gates for other sub-blocks of the block;
while raising the voltages of the word lines to one or more positive voltages, turning on source side select gates and drain side select gates of a selected sub-block and turning off source side select gates and drain side select gates of unselected sub-blocks;
after raising the voltages of the word lines to one or more positive voltages, lowering the voltages of the selected word line and unselected word lines nearby the selected word line to one or more intermediate voltages that are lower in voltage magnitude than the one or more positive voltages while maintaining other unselected word lines at the one or more positive voltages;
after the lowering of the voltages of the selected word line and unselected word lines nearby the selected word line, raising the voltage of the selected word line to a read compare voltage and raising the voltage of the unselected word lines nearby the selected word line to one or more pass gate voltages; and
sensing non-volatile memory cells connected to the selected word line in response to the read compare voltage on the selected word line.