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 .
1. This office acknowledges receipt of the following item(s) from the Applicant:
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) was considered.
2. Claims 1-26 are presented for examination.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
5. Claims 1-2, 5-6, 9-10, 14-15, 18-19 and 22-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cha et al.US Pub. No. 20170109231.
As per claims 1 and 14, Fig. 21 of Cha is directed to a method comprising: programming an array of memory cells wherein a codeword of user data is stored in the array (S540 or S550), executing first a writing algorithm of the codeword (S540 or S550); executing a subsequent writing algorithm of the codeword (the activated one of the first through fourth bank row decoders 260a˜260d, par. 84); and latching a last row access address (by 240 of Fig. 3 for the last fourth bank decoders, par. 83).
As per claims 2, 5-6, 15 and 18-19, Fig 3 of Cha discloses wherein information relating to logic values (low “0” and high “1”, par. 67) of the codeword are stored before executing the first writing algorithm.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the executing first writing algorithm, includes “0” logic values of the codeword.
As per claims 9 and 22, Fig. 3 of Cha discloses wherein a refresh of the codeword (297, par. 82) is performed in response to an access cycle to the codeword.
As per claims 10 and 23, Fig. 22 of Cha discloses wherein the memory cells to be programmed are included in a vertical 3D memory device.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
7. Claims 3-4 and 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Cha et al.US Pub. No. 20170109231 in view of Nemazie US Pub. No. 20180088808.
Cha fails to disclose the limitation in a claim 3. However, Nemazie discloses this limitation wherein read and write operations on the memory cells are mapped in a given sequence of algorithms (Fig. 10 or 12a), comprising a first activate command (ACT) and a subsequent precharge command (PRE, Fig. 12a) related to the codeword of the memory array (claim 1). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time invention was made to recognize that Cha would have the activate and precharge commands as taught by Nemazie in order to have the ACTIVATE command is used to open (or activate) a row in a particular bank for a subsequent access. The PRECHARGE command is used to deactivate the open row (par. 73).
Allowable Subject matter
8. Claims 7-8, 11-13, 20-21 and 24-26 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
9. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims include allowable subject matter since the prior art made of record and considered pertinent to the applicants’ disclosure, taken individually or in combination, does not teach or suggest the claimed invention having wherein, during a write to read delay of the writing algorithm for the “1” logic value, half of a time to wait for reading the “0” logic values is expired in claims 7 and 20; wherein when a read phase is performed for a subsequent codeword reading phase, a sense amplifier circuitry performs a leakage compensation that represents at least another half of the write to read delay period in claims 8 and 21; wherein user data are encoded in a codeword having a number of bits exhibiting a first logic state in a range, the encoding comprising manipulating the codeword to constrain the number of bits exhibiting the first logic value in the range in claims 11 and 24; wherein each codeword stored in the memory array comprises respective additional data information associated thereto and said additional data information are downloaded in parallel during said a latching, comparing and executing the leakage compensation algorithm performed before the execution of said writing in claims 13 and 26.
10. When responding to the office action, Applicants are advised to provide the examiner with the line numbers and page numbers in the application and/or references cited to assist the examiner to locate the appropriate paragraphs.
11. A shortened statutory period for response to this action is set to expire 3 (three) months and 0 (zero) day from the date of this letter. Failure to respond within the period for response will cause the application to become abandoned (see MPEP 710.02 (b)).
12. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Hoai V. Ho whose telephone number is (571) 272-1777. The examiner can normally be reached 7:00 AM -- 5:30 PM from Monday through Thursday.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Zarabian can be reached on (571) 272-1852. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571)-273-8300.
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/HOAI V HO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2827