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US 3,986,177 AGranted
Semiconductor store element and stores formed by matrices of such elements
AssigneeThomson-CSF
InventorsJean-Edgar Picquendar, Pham Ngu Tung
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AssigneeThomson-CSF
InventorsJean-Edgar Picquendar, Pham Ngu Tung
Estimating the term…
A novel semiconductor store element comprises a bistable pnpn structure of the kind described in the copending Patent application Ser. No. 527,918, addressed by a structure of the same type. The system has an area of the order of 10 to 20 square microns and possesses a high switching speed. In a copending U.S. Pat. application filed the under the Ser. No. 527,918 a novel electronic component which, under the effect of applied voltages, could acquire two stable states, one in which it is conductive and the other in which it is blocked, was disclosed. This component enables a large scale integration to be achieved and has a high switching speed. The invention relates to a store element which can acquire two stable states and comprises two components of the aforesaid kind, and load resistors.
A semiconductor store element, having two stable states, one state in which it is conductive and the other in which it is blocked, comprising a first pnpn structure, a common region being the collector to a first transistor and comprising a zone of very small size constituting the base of the second transistor, the current flowing parallel to the substrate surface in one of the transistor and perpendicularly thereto in the other, a d.c bias source, two resistors connecting respectively said region and the collector of the second transistor to said bias source, a two-way gate making it possible, on the one hand to address said trigger stage and on the other hand to apply to it the write-in signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.