Hitachi, Ltd.

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hideaki Uchida

Shinji Nakazato

Yutaka Kobayashi

Masanori Odaka

Nobuo Tanba

Masahiro Yamamura

Kiyoo Itoh

Takao Watanabe

Masahiro Iwamura

Ryoichi Hori

Goro Kitsukawa

Katsuhiro Shimohigashi

Atsushi Hiraishi

Ikuro Masuda

Takahide Ikeda

Noriyuki Homma

Tatsumi Yamauchi

Yukio Suzuki

Katsumi Ogiue

Yoshikazu Saito

Takashi Akioka

Yuji Yokoyama

Yoshiaki Yazawa

Kinya Mitsumoto

Akira Ide

Nozomu Matsuzaki

Kazunori Onozawa

Nobuyuki Gotoo

Nobuaki Miyakawa

Shigeru Takahashi

Nobuyuki Gotou

Makoto Saeki

Yoshikasu Saito

Atushi Hiraishi

Disclosed is a semiconductor device, such as a semiconductor memory device, having structure wherein invasion of minority carriers from the semiconductor substrate into components of the device, formed on the substrate, can be avoided. The semiconductor memory device can be an SRAM or DRAM, for example, and includes a memory array and peripheral circuit on a substrate. In one aspect of the present invention, a buried layer of the same conductivity type as that of the substrate, but with a higher impurity concentration than that of the substrate, is provided beneath at least one of the peripheral circuit and memory array. A further region can extend from the buried layer, for example, to the surface of the semiconductor substrate, the buried layer and further region in combination acting as a shield to prevent minority carriers from penetrating to the device elements. As a second aspect of the present invention, first carrier absorbing areas (to absorb minority carriers) are located between the memory array and the switching circuit of the peripheral circuit, and second carrier absorbing areas are provided to surround input protective elements of the device. As a third embodiment of the present invention, a plurality of isolation regions of the same conductivity type are provided, with unequal voltages applied to these isolation regions, or unequal voltages applied to the substrate, on the one hand, and to these isolation regions, on the other.

Semiconductor memory device

A semiconductor device which includes at least one of (1) an input buffer circuit formed of an input level converter and a non-inverting buffer circuit and an inverting buffer circuit each including BiCMOS circuitry which effects high-speed operation; (2) a decoder circuit formed of plural logic gates each of which is composed of the combination of MOS and bipolar circuitry; (3) a sense amplifier circuit including a multiemitter transistor; (4) a signal or address transition detector circuit which includes input circuits each receiving, for example, an address signal of a voltage amplitude and outputting a current amplitude signal in response to a change in level of the address signal, and a detector circuit connected thereto which has a cascode amplifier arranged such that it receives current amplitude signals at an input thereof and in which the cascode amplifier input is maintained at a substantially constant voltage, in which the detection circuit detects a transition of one or more of the current amplitude signals and, in response thereto, generates an ATD signal of a voltage amplitude; and (5) an output buffer circuit, in which the decoder, sense amplifier and output buffer of the device such as for a memory are controlled in accordance with signals from a clock generator, which is responsive to the ATD signal.

Signal transition detector circuit

A semiconductor memory device which includes at least one of (1) an input buffer circuit which generates internal address signals in response to an incoming address; (2) a decoder circuit formed of plural logic gates each of which is composed of the combination of MOS and bipolar circuitry; (3) a sense amplifier circuit including a multiemitter transistor; (4) a signal or address transition detector circuit which includes input circuits each receiving, for example, an address signal of a voltage amplitude and outputting a current amplitude signal in response to a change in level of the address signal, and a detector circuit connected thereto which has a cascode amplifier arranged such that it receives current amplitude signals at an input thereof and in which the cascode amplifier input is maintained at a substantially constant voltage, in which the detection circuit detects a transition of one or more of the current amplitude signals and, in response thereto, generates an ATD signal of a voltage amplitude; and (5) an output buffer circuit, in which the decoder, sense amplifier and output buffer of the device are controlled in accordance with signals from a clock generator, which is responsive to the ATD signal.

Semiconductor device

An improved buffer circuit arrangement is provided which is particularly useful for semiconductor integrated circuit semiconductor memories and microprocessors. The buffer circuit is capable of switching large loads in various types of LSIs, and features a low noise and high speed circuit operation. This is accomplished by a parallel connection of output transistors in an output buffer circuit, and by differentiating the starting time of operation between the output transistors connected in parallel without using a delay circuit. For example, differentiating the starting times can be achieved by either providing the transistors with different characteristics from one another or the driving circuits with different characteristics from one another. Another aspect of the circuit is the provision of a two-level preset arrangement which presets the output node of the circuit to predetermined values before the input signals are applied.

Microprocessor having high speed, low noise output buffers

Semiconductor memory device having separately biased wells for isolation

High speed, low noise output buffer with non-identical pairs of output

Semiconductor CMOS memory device with separately biased wells

In order to provide high speed and low power consumption, a semiconductor integrated circuit is constructed to utilize both CMOS elements and bipolar transistors. The bipolar transistors are used in the output portions to take advantage of their speed of operation to allow rapid charging and discharging of output lines. In the meantime, the principal operating portions of the circuit use CMOS elements of low power consumption. This arrangement is particularly advantageous in memory circuits.

Semiconductor integrated circuit

A wide-bit output semiconductor storage device of high speed and low noise is provided in which output circuits are grouped into two groups and the two output circuit groups are so controlled as to be switched in directions of levels which are opposite to each other.

High speed, low noise semiconductor storage device

Semiconductor memory device having bipolar transistor and structure to

An input buffer for processing an external signal is provided in one of passways, which is the most closest to a line for equally dividing the whole of a plurality of memory cell blocks longitudinally or laterally into two sections, the passway interposing between the adjacent memory cell blocks of the plurality of memory cell blocks to which a processed signal of the input buffer is transmitted, whereby the length of the signal pass from the input buffer to each memory cell of the memory cell blocks can be shortened. Therefore, since the memory cell or a logic element existing between the input buffer and the memory cell is operated by a pulse of little distortion without delay of time, a access time can be reduced and a processing speed of a microprocessor can be increased. Further, a degree of freedom in designing a system of a memory or the microprocessor is further improved.

Semiconductor memory and microprocessor

Growing community of inventors

Takasaki, Japan

Hideaki Uchida