Patent ID: 9552885
Date: 2017-01-24
CPC Classifications: G11C

Claim:
1. A non-volatile storage device, comprising: a block of non-volatile storage elements including a set of word lines; and managing circuitry in communication with the block of non-volatile storage elements, the managing circuitry is configured to receive a programming request associated with a second subset of the word lines of the block after reading from one or more word lines of a first subset of the word lines of the block, the second subset of word lines has not been programmed since a last erase operation, the managing circuitry is configured to verify the second subset of word lines for an erased state prior to programming the second subset, the managing circuitry is configured to erase the second subset of word lines while inhibiting the first subset of word lines from being erased in response to verifying that the second subset of word lines are not in the erased state.