Hole annealing methods of non-volatile memory cells

Hole annealing methods are described after erasure of nitride storage memory cells for compensating trapped holes to minimize the holes from detrapping in order to reduce the amount of threshold voltage from drifting significantly higher. A soft hot electron program is used to selected nitride storage memory cells that have been detected to have a threshold voltage that is higher than a presetting threshold voltage (EV) minus a wordline delta X. The effect of the soft electron program neutralizes the excess holes introduced by erasure of nitride storage memory cells that decreases the amount of threshold voltage from drifting higher. In one embodiment, a hole annealing method describes a soft hot electron programming to nitride storage memory cells in a block of nitride memory array that have been determined to have a threshold voltage higher than the presetting threshold voltage minus the wordline delta X.