Intel Corporation

Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

John Reginald Riley

Gunjan H Pandya

Pramod Kolar

John J Wuu

Russell J Schreiber

Donald R Weiss

William McGee

Mohammed Hasan Taufique

Feroze Merchant

Vinod Sannareddy

A negative bitline write assist circuit includes a bias capacitor configured to facilitate driving the capacitance of a bitline. The negative bitline write assist circuit may be modularly replicated within a circuit to change the amount of negative voltage on the bitline during write operations. The bitline write assist circuit may be coupled directly to the bitline, removing the need to add a pull-down transistor to the write driver.

Negative bitline write assist circuit and method for operating the same

A system and method for floorplanning a memory. A computing system includes a processing unit which generates memory access requests and a memory. The size of each memory line in the memory includes M bits. The memory includes at least a primary bank and a sidecar bank. The primary bank includes a first portion with (M&#x2212;A) bits of the M bits of a memory line being accessed. The sidecar bank includes a second portion with A bits of the M bits of the memory line being accessed. The primary bank and the sidecar bank have a same height, which is less than a height that would be used if the primary bank included all M bits in each memory line. The completion of the access request for the M bits of the memory line is done at a similar time, such as a same clock cycle.

Sidecar SRAM for high granularity in floor plan aspect ratio

An integrated circuit device includes a memory cell coupled to a supply voltage line to receive a supply voltage and a voltage control circuit operable to reduce a magnitude of the supply voltage prior to a write cycle to the memory cell. The voltage control circuit includes a first capacitor that is selectively coupled between a supply voltage line and a first reference supply voltage line of the integrated circuit device in anticipation of a write cycle to the memory cell.

Memory cell supply voltage reduction prior to write cycle

Methods and systems to dynamically control state-retention strengths of a plurality of memory cells during a write operation to a subset of the memory cells. Dynamic control may include weakening state-retention strengths of the plurality of memory cells during a write operation to a subset of the memory cells, while preserving state-retention abilities of remaining ones of the plurality of memory cells. Weakening may include adjusting one or more resistances between one or more power supplies and the plurality of memory cells. Dynamic control may be selectively performed on portions of each of the memory cells in response to an input data logic state. Dynamic control may reduce a write contention within the subset of memory cells without disabling state-retention abilities of remaining ones of the plurality of memory cells, and may improve write response times of the memory cells.

Methods and systems to improve write response times of memory cells

In one embodiment a low voltage high performance memory system is disclosed. The system can include a bit cell, a first pass gate coupled to the bit cell to receive a write signal, a second pass gate coupled to the bit cell to receive the write signal, and an supply current controller to reduce current to at least a portion of the bit cell and to supply current to another portion of the cell in response to a write control signal and a data signal during a bit cell transition. Reducing the current to a portion of the bit cell and supplying current to another portion of the bit cell during transition can allow the bit cell to transition to a different state faster and can reduce the effects of device variations that manifest during low voltage operation. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

John Reginald Riley