Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi, Ltd.

Kazuo Otsuga

Yusuke Kanno

Kenichi Osada

Yoshitaka Sasago

Hideaki Kurata

Takashi Kobayashi

Tetsuya Yamada

Tsuyoshi Arigane

Koichiro Ishibashi

Kazumasa Yanagisawa

Makoto Saen

Sadayuki Morita

Masafumi Onouchi

Yasuto Igarashi

Yoshio Takazawa

A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a plurality of output transistors each controlling the magnitude of an output voltage relative to the magnitude of a load current according to a control value indicated by an impedance control signal applied to a control terminal, a voltage monitor circuit outputting an output voltage monitor value indicating a voltage value of the output voltage, and a control circuit controlling the magnitude of the control value according to the magnitude of an error value between a reference voltage indicating a target value of the output voltage and the output voltage monitor value, and controls based on the control value whether any of such transistors be brought to a conducting state. The control circuit increases a change step of the control value relative to the error value during a predetermined period according to prenotification signals for notifying a change of the load current in advance.

Semiconductor integrated circuit

AVS (Adaptive Voltage Scaling) technique, by which variability and uncertainty are both taken into account. In the system arranged for AVS technique, a detection circuit optimum for each type of process variation is set. Examples of the detection circuit so arranged include a first measurement circuit for detection of variability, which produces a relative value with respect to the gate delay mean value, and a second measurement circuit for detection of uncertainty, which produces a relative value related to the gate delay standard deviation. The first and second measurement circuits are provided separately from each other. The control information for deciding the supply voltage is prepared based on relative values produced by the detection circuits. When preparing the control information, reference is made to e.g. a table data.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and electronic device

In a semiconductor integrated circuit wherein low-threshold-voltage and high-threshold-voltage transistors are disposed mixedly, the operating speed of each transistor can be properly controlled in speed control execution through regulation of a power supply voltage V. The semiconductor integrated circuit comprises an internal circuit and measuring circuits. The internal circuit comprises a low-threshold-voltage MOS transistor and a high-threshold-voltage MOS transistor, and the degree of threshold voltage variation of the low-threshold-voltage MOS transistor is larger than the degree of threshold voltage variation of the high-threshold-voltage MOS transistor. The measuring circuit detects which one of fast, typical, and slow states is taken by both the low-threshold-voltage MOS transistor and the high-threshold-voltage MOS transistor. When the result data detected indicates the fast state, the power supply voltage Vis set to a lower power supply voltage level 'V&#x2212;&#x394;V' corresponding to a small variation gradient '&#x3b2;[V/&#x3c3;]'. When the result data detected indicates the typical state, the power supply voltage Vis set to an intermediate power supply voltage level &#x201c;V&#x201d;. When the result data detected indicates the slow state, the power supply voltage Vis set to a higher power supply voltage level &#x201c;V+&#x394;V&#x201d; corresponding to a large variation gradient &#x201c;&#x3b1;[V/&#x3c3;]&#x201d;.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and circuit operation method

A semiconductor integrated circuit that includes a circuit block having a predetermined function, a power switch capable of supplying an operating power to the circuit block, and a current measuring circuit for obtaining a current flowing to the circuit block based on a voltage between terminals of the power switch in a state in which the power switch is turned on and an on-resistance of the power switch. Thus, it is possible to measure a current of the circuit block in a state in which a chip is normally operated.

Method of on-chip current measurement and semiconductor IC

The performance of a whole system is improved by synchronizing communication and computations between stacked computing LSIs. Each of stacked an external communication LSI and a computing LSI has a PLL which multiplies a crystal oscillator clock signal, a clock pulse generator which distributes the clock signal, and flip-flop circuits. The computing LSI has a DLL circuit composed of a clock phase comparator, a delay controller, and a delay chain. In order to synchronize the communication and computations of the external communication LSI and the computing LSI, a synchronization reference clock signal is transmitted from the external communication LSI to the computing LSI via a through-electrode. An internal clock signal of the computing LSI is synchronized with the synchronization reference clock signal from the external communication LSI by the DLL circuit.

Semiconductor device for synchronous communication between stacked LSI

A scan chain configuration and a control method for the same are provided, which are optimized for the leakage current reduction technique by a vector input in SoC in which many functional blocks are mounted. The semiconductor integrated circuit includes: plural power domains (Area-AreaN) which have plural functional blocks; power switches (PSW-PSWN) which can supply a power source for operation to the power domains; a scan chain provided for every power domain, and a memory unit (VEC) which supplies, to a scan chain, a vector to enable shifting to a low-leakage state. By re-coupling the scan chain only to a non-operating functional block, it is possible to perform shifting to a low-leakage state for a short time.

Semiconductor integrated circuit including power domains

A semiconductor integrated circuit is constituted to include a circuit block having a predetermined function, a power switch capable of supplying an operating power to the circuit block, and a current measuring circuit for obtaining a current flowing to the circuit block based on a voltage between terminals of the power switch in a state in which the power switch is turned on and an on-resistance of the power switch. The current flowing to the circuit block is obtained based on the voltage between terminals of the power switch in the state in which the power switch is turned on and the on-resistance of the power switch. Thus, it is possible to measure a current of the circuit block in a state in which a chip is normally operated.

Suppressing a leakage current is required in a flash memory because the channel length is made shorter with a reduction in the memory cell size. In an AND type memory array having an assist electrode, although the memory cell area has been reduced by the field isolation using a MOS transistor, leakage current in the channel direction becomes greater with a reduction in the memory cell size, resulting in problems arising like deterioration of programming characteristics, an increase in the current consumption, and reading failure. To achieve the objective, in the present invention, electrical isolation is performed by controlling at least one assist electrode of the assist electrodes wired in parallel to be a negative voltage during program and read operations and by making the semiconductor substrate surface in the vicinity of the aforementioned assist electrode non-conductive.

Semiconductor memory device

A low cost semiconductor nonvolatile memory device capable of high speed programming, using an inversion layer as the wiring, and a manufacturing method for that device. The semiconductor memory device includes an auxiliary electrode at a position between and in parallel with the source and drain regions and with no position overlap versus the source region and the drain region formed mutually in parallel; wherein the auxiliary electrode for hot electron source injection is utilized as the auxiliary electrode for programming (writing); and an inversion layer formed below the auxiliary electrode is utilized as the source region or as the drain region during the read operation.

Growing community of inventors

Kokubunji, Japan

Kazuo Otsuga