Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Hong-Goo Yoon

Jong-Eon Lee

A semiconductor memory device includes a sub word line driver for selectively connecting one of sub word lines with a main word line and applying a boosted voltage having a level higher than a power source voltage to a selected sub word line. The device includes a sub word line driver control signal generator. The sub word line driver control signal generator receives an isolation signal applied to electrically insulate a sense amplifier from a bit line connected to memory cells constituting a memory cell array of the device, and generates a driver control signal for determining whether the sub word line driver operates or not. Thereby, a load of sub word line driver control signal generator can be reduced and so power consumption is reduced.

Semiconductor memory device and method of controlling sub word line driver thereof

A data converting method is realized by a data-converting circuit including: a data combining circuit for outputting 1through (2&#x2212;1)intermediate data bits by combining data bits corresponding to '1's in n-bit binary data corresponding to a decimal number; a thermometer code generating circuit for generating 1through (2&#x2212;1)bits of thermometer code data each activated as '1' when a corresponding intermediate data bit among the 1through (2&#x2212;1)intermediate data bits are activated, wherein each of the 1through (2&#x2212;1)bits of thermometer code data is additionally activated as &#x201c;1&#x201d; by the 1through (2&#x2212;1)intermediate data bits activated by binary data having a greater value than binary data activating the corresponding intermediate data bit; and a reset circuit for periodically resetting the 1through (2&#x2212;1)bits of thermometer code data to &#x201c;0&#x201d; in response to an external clock signal. A digital-to-analog converter incorporates the data-converting circuit.

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Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

Hong-Goo Yoon