A novel high-speed sense amplifier for Bi-NOR flash memories

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 40; no. 2; pp. 515 - 522
• Main Authors: CHUNG, Chiu-Chiao, HONGCHIN LIN, LIN, Yen-Tai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.02.2005; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Advanced cross-couple; Amplifiers; Applied sciences; Bi-NOR; Bidirectional control; Capacitance; Circuit properties; Circuit simulation; Circuits; clamping transistor; Clamps; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Detection; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electrical resistance measurement; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Flash memory; Flash memory (computers); FN tunneling; High speed; Integrated circuits; Integrated circuits by function (including memories and processors); Joining processes; mismatch; Semiconductor devices; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Sense amplifiers; Threshold voltage; Transistors; Tunneling; Voltage threshold; High strength current; Bidirectional link; FN tunneling; Multivariable control; threshold voltage; Tunnel effect; Transistor gate; Erasure; clamping transistor; Amplifier; Mismatching; Advanced cross-couple; Complementary MOS transistor; High voltage; Current mode; Flash memory; Bi-NOR; Integrated circuit; mismatch; Capacitance; Low-power electronics; Reliability
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2004.840965

A novel high-speed current-mode sense amplifier is proposed for Bi-NOR flash memory designs. Program and erasure of the Bi-NOR technologies employ bi-directional channel FN tunneling with localized shallow P-well structures to realize the high-reliability, high-speed, and low-power operation. The proposed sensing circuit with advanced cross-coupled structure by connecting the gates of clamping transistors to the cross-coupled nodes provides excellent immunity against mismatch compared with the other sense amplifiers. Furthermore, the sensing times for various current differences and bitline capacitances and resistances are all superior to the others. The agreement between simulation and measurement indicates the sensing speed reaches 2ns for the threshold voltage difference of lower than 1 V at 1.8-V supply voltage even with the high threshold voltage of the peripheral CMOS transistors up to 0.8 V.