Patent 7626869 was granted and assigned to Spansion on December, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Erasing wordlines at the same time can cause undesirable results because some wordlines are affected by electromagnetic waves of other wordlines. However, other wordlines are not affected because they are next to contacts. Therefore, it can be beneficial to erase wordlines in a multi-phase sequence that allows for erasing wordlines without an impact from other wordlines.