International Business Machines Corporation

Hai Tao Cao

Xiao Liang Hu

Qing Ql Li

Bo Qu

Rui Tu

Huan Shi

Si Shi

A circuit and method for power gating is provided. The circuit includes a switch circuit and a modulation oscillator. The switch circuit is connected between a circuit module and a power network having a target level. The switch circuit receives a control signal at its control signal input terminal to gate a connection between the circuit module and the power network under the control of the control signal. The switch circuit is connected to the circuit module at a first node. A modulation oscillator enabling signal input terminal is connected to a gating signal for enabling the modulation oscillator, a modulation oscillator control signal input terminal is connected to the first node, and an modulation oscillator output terminal is connected to the control signal input terminal of the switch circuit. The oscillation signal outputted from the modulation oscillator is modulated by the level of the first node.

Power gating

Embodiments of the invention provide a sense amplifier, a SRAM chip comprising the sense amplifier and a method of performing read operation on the SRAM chip. The sense amplifier according to embodiments of the invention comprises an additional driving assist portion, which further takes a global data bus as input, the driving assist portion is configured to enable the sense amplifier to provide assisted driving for other sense amplifiers. With the solution according to embodiments of the invention, driving capability of a sense amplifier on global data bus can be enhanced.

Sense amplifier

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Shanghai, China

Hai Tao Cao