Patent ID: 7190614

Claim:
A method for programming a charge storage memory cell having a first terminal and a second terminal acting as a source and a drain in a substrate, a charge storage element, and a control gate, comprising: executing a program operation to induce charge transfer by hot electron injection to the charge storage element to establish a threshold voltage for the memory cell, the program operation including applying a sequence of drain voltage pulses having pulse heights to the second terminal of the memory cell during the program operation, the sequence of drain voltage pulses including a first set of pulses applied during said portion of the program operation, without verify operations between the pulses, and a second set of pulses applied during a second portion of the program operation, and including applying verify pulses between at least two successive pulses in the second set of pulses; applying a gate voltage to the control gate relative to a reference voltage, a source voltage to the first terminal relative to the reference voltage, and a drain voltage to the second terminal relative to the reference voltage; and holding the gate voltage substantially constant at one of a predetermined set of gate voltages in response to the determined data value during a portion of the program operation in which the voltage threshold converges on a target threshold corresponding with the determined data value.