A new current-mode sense amplifier for low-voltage low-power SRAM

Author

Wang, Jinn-Shyan ; Lee, Hong-Yu

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Nat. Chung Cheng Univ., Chia-Yi, Taiwan

fYear

1998

fDate

13-16 Sep 1998

Firstpage

163

Lastpage

167

Abstract

A new current-mode sense amplifier is proposed and it can be used in the design of a low-voltage low-power SRAM for ASIC applications. In the new current-mode sense amplifier a modified current-conveyor is used to prevent the pattern dependent problem which is overlooked in the previous designs. Simulation results show the conventional circuits will fail and the new circuit can work if V_DD=1.5 V and an industrial 0.35 μm CMOS technology is used. Power consumption of the new circuit with V_DD=1.5 V is only 6%~39% of the conventional circuits running at V_DD=2.0 V. A 128×8 SRAM using the new circuit for V_DD=2.0 V in a 0.6 μm CMOS technology is also designed and successfully applied in an 8-bit low-power microcontroller

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; SRAM chips; current conveyors; current-mode circuits; differential amplifiers; low-power electronics; 0.35 micron; 0.6 micron; 1.5 V; ASIC applications; CMOS technology; current-mode sense amplifier; low-power SRAM; low-power microcontroller application; low-voltage SRAM; modified current-conveyor; pattern dependent problem elimination; power consumption; Application specific integrated circuits; CMOS technology; Circuit simulation; Energy consumption; Latches; Power amplifiers; Pulse amplifiers; Random access memory; Very large scale integration; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

ASIC Conference 1998. Proceedings. Eleventh Annual IEEE International

Conference_Location

Rochester, NY

ISSN

1063-0988

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4980-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ASIC.1998.722884

Filename

722884