Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 16 are unpersuasive. Applicant appears to reiterate previous arguments that Kim’s soft read operations are performed in response to a soft decision command rather than using temperature to determine whether or not to perform the soft read operation. The claims do not recite that the soft read is performed “in response to” the temperature satisfying a threshold or determining whether or not to perform the soft read. The claims recite performing the second read operation “based at least in part on” the temperature. As discussed previously, this claim language is broad enough to encompass performing a second read using read voltages based on a temperature threshold as taught by Kim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 16-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alrod (US 20160049203 A1) in view of Park (US 20230402071 A1) and Kim (US 20150242143 A1).
As to claim 16, Alrod teaches a memory device comprising:
a page of memory (see paragraph 0018, disclosing pages of memory);
a plurality of latches (see figs. 7, and 8 and element 762, disclosing latches); and
a controller (see Fig. 1, disclosing controller 120) configured to cause the memory device to:
receive a first command to read the page of memory (see paragraphs 0022, 0023, and 0040 disclosing commands that can be issued from a host or to a memory);
perform, based at least in part on receiving the first command (see paragraphs 0022 and 0023, disclosing commands that can be issued to perform a multi read or soft bit read operation), a first read operation on the page of memory to obtain a first set of bit values associated with the page of memory (see paragraphs 0025 and 0026, disclosing a soft bit read operation that includes two or more read operations and a multi read operation);
output the first set of bit values associated with the page of memory to a first latch of the plurality of latches (see paragraph 0117, disclosing storing bit values from the read operations to data latches 762);
perform, a second read operation on the page of memory to obtain a second set of bit values associated with the page of memory, wherein the second read operation is performed without reception of a second read command for the second read operation (see paragraphs 0023-0040, disclosing multiple reads based of reception of a single read command from a host as well as single controller issues commands that result in multiple read operations); and
While Alrod does output the second read data to latches 762, Alrod does not explicitly teach to output the second set of bit values associated with the page of memory to a second latch of the plurality of latches.
However, Park teaches the use of separate data latches when performing soft sensing operations on data cells (see at least Figs. 8, 13 and throughout Park).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Alrod with the methods of Park because it enables reduction of operational complexity and prevents performance degradation and enhances efficiency and i/o performance (see paragraph 0035).
The above references do not explicitly teach the controller is configured to perform the second read operation based at least in part a temperature of the memory device satisfying a threshold.
However, Kim teaches using temperature to determine read voltages for soft reads (see paragraph 0039 and see fig. 2, showing how threshold temperatures can be used to adjust parameters).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine the references with Kim because it improves reliability of stored data (see paragraph 0006).
As to claim 17, the references teach claim 16 as detailed above. They further teach the second read operation on the page of memory is associated with obtaining soft information for the page of memory (see Alrod paragraphs 0025 and 0026, disclosing a soft bit read operation that includes two or more read operations).
As to claim 18, the references teach claim 16 as detailed above. They further teach to perform the second read operation at least partially concurrently with outputting the first set of bit values to the first latch (see Park paragraph 0193, disclosing transferring data from latch to latch in parallel with an operation to obtain data form the memory cell or another reoperation for outputting the hard decision data entry or soft decision data entry).
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alrod, Park, and Kim, in view of Ravimohan (US 20170031612 A1).
As to claim 20, the references teach claim 16 as detailed above. They further teach to change, after performing the first read operation, a parameter associated with the page of memory, wherein the controller is configured to perform the second read operation based at least in part on changing the parameter (see paragraph 0025, discloses that a soft bit read can perform reads at different reding voltages).
The references do not explicitly teach that the parameter is associated with a trim set.
However, Ravimohan teaches that trim set parameters can include read voltages (see paragraph 0049).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine the references with the methods of Ravimohan because they improve block management and yield (se paragraph 0049).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-4 and 7-15 are allowable.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
As to claim 11, it contains allowable subject matter when the claim is taken as a whole. See the italicized text indicating aspects that in combination with the remainder of the claim differentiate it from prior art:
11. An apparatus, comprising:
a controller configured to couple with a memory device, wherein the controller is configured to:
perform a first portion of a first operation on the memory device, wherein the first portion of the first operation loads a plurality of pages of data from the memory device into respective latches of the memory device;
receive from one of the respective latches, first data associated with a first page of the plurality of pages of data;
perform a first decoding process on the first data;
perform a second operation on the memory device to read second data associated with the first page into at least one latch of the respective latches based at least in part on a decoding failure of the first decoding process, wherein performing the second operation overwrites data loaded in the at least one latch with the second data; and
perform a second decoding process on the first page using the first data and the second data.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20190051360 A1 (see paragraph0024).
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/JASON B BRYAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114