Patent ID: 8644099

Claim:
A non-transitory machine-readable medium including machine-executable instructions stored thereon, which when executed by a machine or computer cause the machine or computer to perform a method of determining a dwell time in a memory circuit after a shutdown of the memory circuit, the method comprising: storing a first test block before the shutdown; storing a second test block after powering on the memory circuit; performing a first read level sweep of the first test block to determine a first read level voltage with minimum errors, including determining the first read level voltage as a function of a nominal read level voltage and a first estimation parameter; performing a second read level sweep of the second test block to determine a second read level voltage with minimum errors, including determining the second read level voltage as a function of the nominal read level voltage and a second estimation parameter; determining a shutdown threshold voltage (V T ) shift as a function of the first read level voltage and the second read level voltage; and determining a shutdown duration as a function of the shutdown V T shift.