Design of an high speed xdecoder driving a large wordline load consuming less switching current for use in high speed syncflash memory
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorEbrahim Abedifard
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for improving the performance of a memory wordline decoder is disclosed. A decoder latch is attached to an inverter which drives the wordline. Additional, a voltage pump can supply operating voltage to the inverter to assist in overdriving the wordline. A voltage sink can also be coupled to the inverter which, in combination with the voltage pump, can be used to shift the output voltages used to turn the wordline on and off. A second inverter can also be added, and in such a case the transistors within the latch and the first inverter can be reduced in size, switching time, and power consumption.
Claims14
A decoder for driving a wordline, comprising:
- a latch set to a particular state when said wordline is to be driven;
- a decoding circuit for receiving and decoding the address of said wordline and setting said latch to said particular state;
- a first output inverter, comprising a pair of serially connected complementary CMOS transistors for driving said wordline in response to said latch being set to said particular state;
- and
- a voltage sink, connected to said first output inverter, said voltage sink being at a potential lower than ground.
A processor circuit, comprising
- a processor;
- and
- a memory circuit for exchanging data with said processor;
- at least one of said processor and memory circuit comprising a wordline decoder, said decoder comprising:
- a latch set to a particular state when said wordline is to be driven;
- a decoder for receiving and decoding the address of said wordline and setting said latch to said particular state;
- an output inverter, comprising a pair of serially connected complementary CMOS transistors for driving said wordline in response to said latch being set to said particular state;
- and
- a voltage sink, connected to said output inverter, said voltage sink being at a potential lower than ground.
An method of operating a wordline decoder, comprising:
- decoding wordline address information and setting a latch associated with a wordline to a predetermined state when an address of said wordline is decoded;
- driving said selected wordline with a first output inverter having an input connected to an output of said latch;
- and
- driving said selected word line to a voltage below ground.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.