Patent ID: 7502885

Claim:
A method of operating flash memory chips, the method comprising: (a) sequentially applying an operation command and an address to N flash memory chips stacked vertically; (b) checking whether or not an operation corresponding to the operation command applied to a first flash memory chip has been completed, as a result of the check, if the operation of the first flash memory chip is determined not to have been completed, checking whether or not an operation corresponding to the operation command applied to a second flash memory chip has been completed, and as a result of the check, if the operation corresponding to the operation applied to the first flash memory chip is determined to have been completed, determining whether or not the operation has been completed corresponds to a last page of the first flash memory chip; (c) as a result of the determination, if the operation completed by the first flash memory chip is determined to be the last page of the first flash memory chip, checking whether or not the operation corresponding to the operation command applied to the second flash memory chip has been completed, and as a result of the determination, if the operation completed by the first flash memory chip does not correspond to the last page of the first flash memory, applying another operating command and another address to the first flash memory chip, and then checking whether or not the operation has been completed by the second flash memory chip; (d) if the operation has not been completed after checking an N th flash memory chip by sequentially performing the steps (b) and (c), allowing the process to return to the step (b), and if the operation has been completed, determining whether or not the operation completed corresponds to a last page of the N th flash memory chip; and (e) as a result of the determination, if the operation completed corresponds to the last page of the N th flash memory chip, returning to the step (b), and if the operation completed does not correspond to the last page of the N th flash memory chip, applying another operating command and another address to the N th flash memory chip, and then returning to the step (b).