Disclosed is a non-volatile memory device and a method of erasing the
non-volatile memory device. An erase voltage is simultaneously applied to
a plurality of sectors contained in the non-volatile memory device. Then,
erase validation is sequentially performed for each of the plurality
sectors and results of the erase validation are stored in a plurality of
pass information registers. According to the results stored in the pass
information registers, sectors which were not successfully erased are
simultaneously re-erased and then sequentially re-validated until no such
"failed sectors" remain in the non-volatile memory device. Upon
eliminating the "failed sectors" from the non-volatile memory device, a
post-program operation is sequentially performed on each of the plurality
of sectors.