International Business Machines Corporation

Helmut H Heimeier

Friedrich C Wernicke

Wilfried Klein

Erich Klink

Knut K Najmann

Rudolf Brosch

Wielfried Klein

After a controlled strong lowering of the word line potential for the purpose of addressing a cell, said potential is immediately recharged simultaneously increasing the potential on the N side of the two PNP injectors of the cell and causing the injector capacitances of the selected storage cells and the bit line capacitances to form a capacitive voltage divider, so that the bit lines connected thereto are recharged to different degrees by the different magnitudes of the injector capacitances. Thus, the differential signal formed on the bit lines is noticeably amplified by the supply of currents of different magnitudes.

Circuit arrangement for capacitive read signal amplification in an

Semiconductor storage in which the current necessary for reading and/or writing the storage cells is generated simply by discharging input capacitances of the non-selected storage cells and is fed directly to the selected storage cells for reading and/or writing.

Method of and circuit arrangement for reading and/or writing an

An integrated semiconductor memory having memory cells which have (or are designed to have) inherent asymmetrical access times for the distinguishable memory states thereof. The memory is operated on the basis of the shorter access time. This is accomplished by utilizing an oppositely asymmetrical sense system, preferably in the form of a pre-set sense latch. For example, in the case of a digital memory with the reading of a '0' state having a shorter access time than the reading of a '1' state, at the beginning of a read operation a sense latch is set to the (slower) '1' state. Thus, only in the case of reading a '0' is the state of the latch changed to the '0' state. Thus, the actual access time is no longer determined by the longer access time, namely, the reading of a '1'. The access time is determined by the shorter access time, namely, the reading of a '0'. The concept may also be used if the sense latch has an asymmetric access time. Then it is advantageous to intentionally choose a corresponding asymetrical memory cell design.

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Herrenberg, Germany

Helmut H Heimeier