Data latch circuit having non-volatile memory cell
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsShigeru Atsumi, Hironori Banba
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A data latch circuit comprises a non-volatile memory cell having its threshold voltage changed in accordance with data to be stored therein, and a latch circuit. The cell has a transistor for writing data and a transistor for reading data. The writing and reading transistors has a common floating gate. The reading transistor has a threshold voltage lower than the writing transistor. During normal operation, a ground potential is applied to the control gate of the reading transistor. The latch circuit latches data in accordance with whether the non-volatile memory cell is in the on-state or off-state.
Claims6
A data latch circuit comprising:
- a first non-volatile memory cell having a first writing transistor and a first reading transistor, and disposed to store data, the first writing transistor and reading transistor having at least one first control gate and a first common floating gate, the first reading transistor having a threshold voltage lower than the first writing transistor, the control gate of the first reading transistor being disposed to be supplied, during normal operation, with a constant voltage independent from a power supply voltage;
- a second non-volatile memory cell having a second writing transistor and a second reading transistor, and disposed to store complementary data with respect to data to be stored in the first non-volatile memory cell, the second writing and reading transistors having at least one second control gate and a second common floating gate, the second reading transistor having a threshold voltage lower than the second writing transistor, the control gate of the second reading transistor being disposed to be supplied, during normal operation, with the constant voltage;
- and
- latch means for latching potentials corresponding to the on- and off-states of the first non-volatile memory cell and second non-volatile memory cell.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.