A microelectronic memory may be password access protected. A controller may maintain a register with requirements for accessing particular memory locations to initiate a security protocol. A mapping may correlate which regions within a memory array are password protected. Thus, a controller can use a register and the mapping to determine whether a particular granularity of memory is password protected, what the protection is, and what protection should be implemented. As a result, in some embodiments, a programmable password protection scheme may be utilized to control a variety of different types of accesses to particular regions of a memory array.