Title :
A novel high-speed sense amplifier for Bi-NOR flash memories
Author :
Chung, Chiu-Chiao ; Lin, Hongchin ; Lin, Yen-Tai
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Nat. Chung-Hsing Univ., Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract :
A novel high-speed current-mode sense amplifier is proposed for Bi-NOR flash memory designs. Program and erasure of the Bi-NOR technologies employ bi-directional channel FN tunneling with localized shallow P-well structures to realize the high-reliability, high-speed, and low-power operation. The proposed sensing circuit with advanced cross-coupled structure by connecting the gates of clamping transistors to the cross-coupled nodes provides excellent immunity against mismatch compared with the other sense amplifiers. Furthermore, the sensing times for various current differences and bitline capacitances and resistances are all superior to the others. The agreement between simulation and measurement indicates the sensing speed reaches 2ns for the threshold voltage difference of lower than 1 V at 1.8-V supply voltage even with the high threshold voltage of the peripheral CMOS transistors up to 0.8 V.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; MOSFET; NOR circuits; amplifiers; circuit reliability; current-mode circuits; flash memories; tunnelling; 0.8 V; 1.8 V; 2 ns; Bi-NOR flash memories; CMOS transistors; FN tunneling; advanced cross-couple; bi-directional channel; bitline capacitances; bitline resistances; clamping transistors; cross-coupled nodes; current-mode sense amplifier; high-speed sense amplifier; sensing circuit; shallow P-well structures; threshold voltage; Bidirectional control; Capacitance; Circuit simulation; Clamps; Electrical resistance measurement; Flash memory; Joining processes; Threshold voltage; Transistors; Tunneling;
Journal_Title :
Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of
DOI :
10.1109/JSSC.2004.840965
