Patent ID: 7898868

Claim:
A of concurrently sensing the data content for a plurality of multi-state non-volatile memory cells of a memory array, the method comprising: applying a first reference voltage to a control gate of each the plurality memory cells; while applying the first reference voltage to the control gate of each the plurality memory cells, receiving the current form each of the plurality of memory cells at a first input of one of a corresponding plurality of sense amplifies; while receiving the current form each of the plurality of memory cells at the plurality of sense amplifies, providing a first reference current at a second input of each of the plurality of sense amplifiers, where the first reference starts at an initial value and incrementally increases; for each of the plurality of sense amplifiers, determining when the first reference current exceeds the current from the corresponding one of the memory cells; and storing the result of each of said determinings in one of a corresponding plurality of registers.