Patent ID: 6987695

Claim:
A method for writing a data item into a nonvolatile memory, wherein the writing of a data item requires changing states of at least a first nonvolatile memory cell and a second nonvolatile memory cell by supplying data writing signals to the first and second memory cells, the method comprising: determining, based on the data item, first data to be written to the first memory cell and second data to be written to the second memory cell; and writing the first and second data to the respective first and second cells, wherein the writing of the first and second data comprises: (a) supplying a data writing signal to the first memory cell but not the second memory cell to write said data item; and then (b) supplying data writing signals simultaneously to the first and second memory cells to write said data item; wherein writing the first data to the first memory cell comprises both operations (a) and (b), but writing the second data to the second memory cell comprises the operation (b) but not the operation (a).