A method and apparatus for improving the endurance of flash memories. In one embodiment of the invention, a high electric field is provided to the control gate of a flash memory module. The high electric field applied to the flash memory module removes trapped charges between a control gate and an active area of the flash memory module. In one embodiment of the invention, the high electric field is applied to the control gate of the flash memory module prior to an erase operation of the flash memory module. By applying a high electric field to the control gate of the flash memory module, embodiments of the invention improve the Program / Erase cycling degradation of the single-level or multi-level cells of the flash memory module.