Sony Corporation

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation

Ichiro Kumata

Takeshi Onodera

Takenori Sugawara

Masatoshi Aikawa

An asynchronous interface according to the disclosure includes: a transmission circuit that transmits, with data of W bits as one word, the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an REQ signal whose value differs by one bit per transmission of the data of one word; a reception circuit including a reception buffer having a reception buffer word count of n (n is an integer of 4 or more), in which the reception circuit receives the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an ACK signal whose value differs by one bit per reception of the data of one word; a data signal line that has a bit width of W, and transfers the data from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; an REQ signal line that has a bit width of log(n) or more, and transfers the REQ signal from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; and an ACK signal line that has a bit width of log(n) or more, and transfers the ACK signal from the reception circuit to the transmission circuit.

Asynchronous interface

A control circuit of power gating of the present disclosure includes a control section that controls whether to perform power gating depending on a level of a clock signal for a logic circuit supplied with a power supply voltage through a power switch transistor, on the basis of a clock frequency of the clock signal.

Control circuit of power gating and semiconductor device

Disclosed herein is a clock supplying apparatus for supplying a clock to a digital circuit, including: a differential clock driver; a first clock line along which a first clock of a positive phase from the clock driver propagates; a second clock line along which a second clock of a reverse phase from the clock driver propagates; and a parallel resonance circuit of an inductor and a capacitor. The inductor of the parallel resonance circuit is connected at a first end to the first clock line and at a second end to the second clock line. The capacitor of the parallel resonance circuit is connected at a first electrode to the first clock line and at a second electrode to the second clock line.

Clock supplying apparatus

A digital DLL circuit includes: a first register configured to hold a first delay specifying value to specify a delay of a rising edge side of a signal; a second register configured to hold a second delay specifying value to specify a delay of a falling edge side of a signal; and a digitally-controlled variable delay circuit configured to be allowed to individually control delays of a rise side and a fall side of a signal. The digital DLL circuit further includes a control circuit configured to implement control so that a rise-side delay and a fall-side delay by the variable delay circuit are kept at the first delay specifying value of the first register and the second delay specifying value of the second register, respectively.

Digital DLL circuit

A digital DLL circuit includes: a register configured to hold a delay target value; an oscillator; a first counter configured to count an external reference clock or an oscillation output from the oscillator; a second counter configured to count the oscillation output from the oscillator or the external reference clock in every measurement cycle determined by the first counter; and a digitally-controlled variable delay circuit. The DLL circuit further includes a control circuit configured to control the reset and activation of the first counter and the second counter, and control the stop of the first and second counters according to need, based on a count value of the first counter, the control circuit subjecting a count value of the second counter and the delay target value of the register to a digital arithmetic operation, and supplying the variable delay circuit with a result of the arithmetic operation as a delay control value.

Digital DLL circuit for an interface circuit in a semiconductor memory

A digital DLL circuit includes: a first register configured to hold a delay specifying value to specify a delay; a second register configured to specify a correction value for a gate delay inside an LSI; a digitally-controlled variable delay circuit; and a control circuit configured to produce a delay control value to implement control so that a delay by the variable delay circuit is kept at the delay specifying value of the first register. The digital DLL circuit further includes an adder circuit configured to add a gate delay correction value held by the second register to the delay control value output from the control circuit, and output a resultant value to a control input of the variable delay circuit.

A logic processing circuit including a plurality of flip-flop including a front stage flip-flop and a rear stage flip-flop, a logic gate circuit network adapted to process data stored in the front stage flip-flop, a result of the process being stored in the rear stage flip-flop, and switching means for switching between a power-on period and a power-off period, the power-on period being a period in which power is being provided to the logic gate circuit network, the power-on period corresponding to either a low-level state period of a clock signal or a high-level state period thereof, the power-off period being a period in which the power is being turned off, the power-off period corresponding to the state period other than the state period corresponding to the power-on period.

Logic processing apparatus, semiconductor device and logic circuit

Off-leak electric current is reduced in the operation mode where a circuit is actually operating. In the state in which the power supply voltage is constantly applied to the front stage flip-flopstoand rear stage flip-flopstofor example, data held in the flip-flopstoat rising of the clock signal CK is processed in a logic gate circuit networkto which the supply voltage is applied during a low level period of the clock signal CK, and then, the processed data is held in the flip-flopstoIn the case where the power supply time to the logic gate circuit networkis set to minimum, off-leak electric current of the logic gate circuit networkcan be reduced.

A method of frame synchronization for serial data transmission is presented herein. A transmitting circuit in a data communication apparatus converts frame data into serial data and transmits the same, and following the serial data, the transmitting circuit transmits frame synchronization data varying several times in the interval from an edge of a clock signal to an edge of the next clock signal; a receiving circuit receives the frame data and detects two or more variations in the same interval to find the end of the frame data, by receiving the serial data from a signal line, serial data is transmitted while carrying out frame synchronization.

Transmitting circuit and method thereof, receiving circuit and method thereof, and data communication apparatus

A method of frame synchronization serial data transmission. A transmitting circuit in a data communication apparatus converts frame data into serial data and transmit the same, and following the serial data, the transmitting circuit transmits frame synchronization data varying several times in the interval from an edge of a clock signal to an edge of the next clock signal; a receiving circuit receives the frame data and detects twice or more variations in the same interval to find out the end of the frame data, by receiving the serial data from a signal lines, serial data is transmitted while carrying out frame synchronization.

A bus emulation apparatus includes serial transfer paths, serial interface circuits having a parallel to serial conversion circuit for converting parallel data from a peripheral circuit to serial data and supplying to a serial transfer path and a serial to parallel conversion circuit for converting serial data from a hub circuit to parallel data and supplying to a peripheral circuit, a hub circuit for supplying serial data from a serial interface circuit to a serial interface circuit connected to a peripheral circuit as a transfer destination of said parallel data among the serial interface circuits, and a network for connecting them, and installed on an LSI or a print circuit board to replaced a parallel bus.

Bus emulation apparatus

A delay circuit is constituted by connecting a plurality of delay elements in series, each delay element is constituted by a pMOS transistor P1 and a nMOS transistor N1 having a larger driving capability than P1 and by a nMOS transistor N2 and a pMOS transistor P2 having a larger driving capability than N2, an input signal is applied to the gate of the transistor P1, a precharge signal is applied to the gate of the transistor N1, an inverted signal of the precharge signal is applied to the gate of the transistor P2, the gate of the transistor N2 is connected to an intermediate node A, an input signal S.sub.IN is input to each delay element as the precharge signal, and when the input signal S.sub.IN is at a high level, the node A is in the state of a low level and the output terminal OUT is in the state of a high level, the falling edge of the input signal S.sub.IN is sequentially propagated by delay elements, and thus a delay signal is obtained.

Delay circuit and oscillator circuit using the same

It is to realize a function clock generation circuit with which a wiring area and cell area, and further a power consumption can be reduced, and a timing design is easy. An input terminal D of a through latch circuit LTC11 is connected to an input line of an enable signal EN, an inversion clock input terminal G is connected to the input line of the clock signal, one input terminal of a NAND gate NAND11 is connected to an output terminal Q of a through latch circuit LTC11, the other input terminal is connected to the input terminal of the clock signal CK, and the output terminal is connected to the input terminal of an inverter INV11. Then, in the through latch circuit LTC11, the enable signal EN is sampled at the rising edge of the clock signal CK, and according to the value, the clock pulse immediately after the sampling is passed or blocked by the logical gate LGT comprising a NAND gate NAND11 and an inverter INV11.

Function clock generation circuit and D-type flip-flop equipped with

A synchronizing circuit including a plurality of latches, comprised of a first dynamic type through latch circuit and a second dynamic type through latch circuit between which is disposed a static type through latch circuit, the circuits connected in cascade. Data is sampled at the timing of the rising edge of the clock signal generated by a pulse generation circuit connected to a clock input circuit and data is output at the timing of the trailing edge. By defining the clock pulse width generated at the pulse generation circuit larger than the clock skew, it is possible to prevent malfunctions of the LSI caused by clock skew caused by deviation of timing of the clock distribution. Moreover, by providing a dynamic type through circuit for a scan test input to the first dynamic type through latch circuit in parallel, a scanning function can be realized and a malfunction due to the clock skew during scanning can be prevented.

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Ichiro Kumata