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US 6,594,193 B2Granted
Charge pump for negative differential resistance transistor
AssigneeProgressent Technologies, Inc.
InventorKing Tsu-Jae
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Abstract
An integrated circuit device includes a charge pump for providing a bias signal to a field effect transistor (FET) that is capable of operating in a negative differential resistance mode. The bias signal is applied to a gate of the NDR FET to control the characteristics of the NDR behavior.
Claims14
An integrated circuit (IC) device comprising:
- a semiconductor field effect transistor (FET) adapted to exhibit a negative differential resistance (NDR) effect in response to a bias signal applied to a gate terminal of said FET;
- wherein said semiconductor FET is a three terminal device including said gate terminal, a source terminal, and a drain terminal, and said NDR effect is exhibited in a channel coupling said source terminal and said drain terminal;
- a charge pump circuit for supplying said bias signal, said bias signal having a voltage value greater than an operating voltage used by other logic devices and/or memory devices incorporated in the IC device.
A method of operating an integrated circuit device comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a first nominal operating voltage for a first set of logic circuits and/or a first set of memory circuits;
- (b) controlling a semiconductor transistor to operate in a first mode characterized by negative differential resistance behavior in a channel region of said semiconductor transistor;
- and
- (c) controlling said semiconductor transistor to operate in a second mode characterized by a non-negative differential resistance behavior in said channel region;
- and
- (d) coupling a gate region of said semiconductor transistor to a bias input signal;
- and
- (e) scaling said first nominal operating voltage to generate a scaled voltage to be used by said bias input signal.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.