Semiconductor device and IC card carried the device

• Main Author: AIDANO YOSHITAKA,NAKANE JOJI
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 23.08.2006
• Subjects: APPARATUS FOR CONVERSION BETWEEN AC AND AC, BETWEEN AC AND DC,OR BETWEEN DC AND DC, AND FOR USE WITH MAINS OR SIMILAR POWERSUPPLY SYSTEMS; BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONTROL OR REGULATION THEREOF; CONTROLLING; CONVERSION OF DC OR AC INPUT POWER INTO SURGE OUTPUTPOWER; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER; COUNTING; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; GENERATION; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; REGULATING; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; SYSTEMS FOR REGULATING ELECTRIC OR MAGNETIC VARIABLES

A semiconductor memory device includes a voltage reduction circuit which reduces a power supply voltage and outputs an internal voltage, a nonvolatile memory connected to the internal voltage and a current consumption control circuit including a switch transistor and a resistor. In this case, the amount of electric current which the nonvolatile memory consumes and the amount of electric current which the resistor consumes are substantially the same. When the nonvolatile memory is in a non-operation state, the current consumption control circuit turns ON the switch transistor by a memory activation signal and consumes substantially the same amount of electric current as the amount of electric current which the nonvolatile memory consumes. When the nonvolatile memory is in an operation state, the current consumption control circuit turns OFF the switch transistor and stops electric current consumption by the resistor.