A method of erasing a plurality of non-volatile memory (NVM) cells on a die includes applying erase signals to the plurality of NVM cells. A subset of the plurality of NVM cells is identified to be soft programmed. Information is identified from a non-volatile storage location that stores a value to identify a particular magnitude from a plurality of possible magnitudes of a starting voltage. A soft program signal is applied to the NVM cells identified for soft programming, wherein the starting voltage of the soft program signal has the particular magnitude.