Double bit error correction using single bit error correction, double bit error detection logic and syndrome bit memory

摘要

A method of and an apparatus for obtaining double bit error correction capabilities in a large scale integrated (LSI) semiconductor memory system using only single bit error correction, double bit error detection (SEC, DED) logic are disclosed. The method is based upon the statistical assumption that in a large scale integrated semiconductor memory, substantially all errors in the data bits that make up a data word are initially a single bit error and that increasing multiple, i.e., double, triple, etc., bit errors occur in a direct increasing ratio of the use or selection of the data word. In the present invention, all data words are priorly tested to be error free. Subsequent detection of single bit errors results in the correction of the single bit error and the storage of the single bit error correcting syndrome bits in a syndrome bit memory. Subsequent detection of double bit errors, in the previously single bit error detected and corrected data words, results in the correction, by single bit error correcting syndrome bits, of the previously detected single bit error. This single bit error corrected data word is then again single bit error corrected, i.e., two successive single bit error corrections, to provide a twice corrected double bit error data word.