A method and apparatus are provided for implementing enhanced vertical ECC
storage in a dynamic random access memory. A dynamic random access memory
(DRAM) is split into a plurality of groups. Each group resides inside a
DRAM row address strobe (RAS) page so that multiple locations inside a
group can be accessed without incurring an additional RAS access penalty.
Each group is logically split into a plurality of segments for storing
data with at least one segment for storing ECC for the data segments. For
a write operation, data are written in a data segment and then ECC for
the data are written in an ECC segment. For a read operation, ECC are
read from an ECC segment, then data are read from the data segment.