Experimental investigation of the minimum signal for reliable operation of DRAM sense amplifiers

Author

Geib, Heribert ; Weber, Werner ; Wohlrab, Erdi ; Risch, Lothar

Author_Institution

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany

Volume

27

Issue

7

fYear

1992

fDate

7/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1028

Lastpage

1035

Abstract

Discusses the measurement of the minimum sense signal necessary for proper operation of the dynamic RAM (DRAM) sense amplifier. The minimum sense signal has been investigated experimentally by using a test structure that is basically a modified cross-coupled sense amplifier with 16-Mb DRAM feature sizes. Measured 5 sigma values of 27 mV correspond to variation in gate length, whereas 10 mV is found for bit-line capacitance asymmetries. The way that the minimum sense signal is affected by the different trigger-pulse slopes was investigated. A simple but illustrative analysis of the effect of device mismatches is developed and the measured values are compared with theoretical limits.

Keywords

DRAM chips; pulse amplifiers; 10 mV; 27 mV; DRAM sense amplifiers; bit-line capacitance asymmetries; cross-coupled sense amplifier; device mismatches; feature sizes; gate length; minimum signal; sense signal; trigger-pulse slopes; Capacitance measurement; Circuits; DRAM chips; Length measurement; Operational amplifiers; Parasitic capacitance; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse shaping methods; Random access memory; Safety; Shape; Testing; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.142598

Filename

142598