Semiconductor memory device with switchable sense amps
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorTakayuki Shirai
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A semiconductor memory device, in which based on a write and non-write states of a memory transistor, a signal corresponding to a page mode and a normal mode is generated, and a switch circuit activates all sense amplifiers corresponding to memory array blocks and transfers data read out of the memory array blocks to the sense amplifiers in the page mode and also activates one of the sense amplifiers and successively transfers the data read out of the memory cell array blocks to the one activated sense amplifier according to an address signal in the normal mode. A plurality of sense amplifiers are activated in the page mode and the minimum number of the sense amplifiers is activated in the normal mode to eliminate a waste of a consumption power.
Claims3
A semiconductor memory device, comprising:
- memory cell array means having a plurality of memory cell array blocks to be read out data from addresses selected by a first address signal;
- a plurality of sense amplifiers corresponding to the memory cell array blocks, the sense amplifiers detecting levels of data transferred from the memory cell array blocks when the sense amplifiers are activated, to output the detected levels;
- a switch circuit for activating one of the sense amplifiers and successively transferring the data read out of the memory cell array blocks to the one activated sense amplifier according to a second address signal in a normal mode and for activating all the sense amplifiers and transferring the data read out of the memory cell array blocks to the corresponding sense amplifiers in a page mode;
- and
- an output circuit for outputting the data of the one activated sense amplifier in the normal mode and successively outputting the data of the plurality of sense amplifiers according to the second address signal in the page mode.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.