Patent ID: 8037235

Claim:
A semiconductor device for transferring input data to a non-volatile memory device, the semiconductor device comprising: a virtual page buffer including a plurality of data elements; a mask buffer including a plurality of data elements, each of the data elements of the mask buffer corresponding to a respective one of the data elements of the virtual page buffer; control logic circuitry for (i) setting each of the data elements of the mask buffer to a first logic state upon receipt of a trigger; (ii) causing input data to be written to selected ones of the data elements of the virtual page buffer; and (iii) causing those data elements of the mask buffer corresponding to the selected ones of the data elements of the virtual page buffer to be set to a second logic state different from the first logic state; mask logic circuitry configured to provide masked output data by combining, for each of the data elements of the virtual page buffer, data read therefrom together with the logic state of the corresponding one of the data elements of the mask buffer; and an output interface configured to release the masked output data towards the non-volatile memory device.