Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Converting input voltage to output current or vice versa
Patent
1997-06-24
1999-03-23
Tran, Toan
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Converting input voltage to output current or vice versa
327 53, H02M 1100, G11C 706
Patent
active
058865462
ABSTRACT:
A sense amplifier and method are provided using current/voltage converters that are suitable for a multibit (2 bit/cell) memory device. The sense amplifier includes first and second current/voltage converters and a voltage comparator. The current/voltage converters each include a current mirror amplification unit to amplify an input current and a current mirror conversion unit to convert the amplified current into a voltage. A current to be sensed is applied to the first current/voltage converter and a reference current is applied to the second current/voltage converter. The voltage comparator determines a voltage difference by comparing the voltage output by the first and second current/voltage converters. The sense amplifier and method increases the speed and ease of sensing the input current. Further, the sense amplifier and method applied to a multibit memory can reduce an area for memory elements by 40%.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4740743 (1988-04-01), Reisinger et al.
patent: 4943737 (1990-07-01), Guo et al.
patent: 5206552 (1993-04-01), Iwashita
patent: 5255233 (1993-10-01), Izumi
patent: 5481179 (1996-01-01), Keeth
patent: 5528543 (1996-06-01), Stiegler
LG Semicon Co. Ltd.
Tran Toan
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