Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Manish Arora

Hung-Jen Liao

Yen-Huei Chen

Yu-Hao Hsu

Li-Wen Wang

Sahil Preet Singh

Nikhil Puri

Hau-Tai Shieh

Chien-Yuan Chen

Che-Ju Yeh

Hemant Patel

Cheng Hung Lee

Cheng-Hung Lee

A memory circuit includes first and second memory segments coupled to first and second write lines, and first and second write line circuits coupled to the first and second write lines and configured to receive first and second data signals. The first and second data signals have complementary low and high logical states during a write operation to the first or second memory segment, and each of the first and second data signals has the low logical state during a masked write operation to the first or second memory segment. The first and second write line circuits output, to the first and second write lines, first and second write line signals responsive to the first and second data signals during the write operation and float the first and second data lines during the masked write operation.

Floating data line circuit and method

A write line circuit includes a power supply node configured to carry a power supply voltage level, a reference node configured to carry a reference voltage level, an output node, first and second switching devices coupled in series between the output node and the power supply node, and a third switching device directly coupled to each of the output node and the reference node. The first switching device is configured to selectively couple the output node to the second switching device responsive to a first data signal, the second switching device is configured to selectively couple the first switching device to the power supply node responsive to a second data signal, and the third switching device is configured to selectively couple the output node to the reference node responsive to the first data signal.

A semiconductor memory device comprising a plurality of memory cells configured to store digital data and an input multiplexer configured to enable the selection of a particular memory cell from the plurality of memory cells. The semiconductor memory device further comprises a read/write driver circuit configured to read data from the selected memory cell and write data to the selected memory cell, and a write logic block configured to provide logical control to the read/write driver circuit for writing data to the selected of memory cell. The read/write driver circuit may be coupled to the read/write input multiplexer by a data line and an inverted data line and the read and the write operations to the selected memory cell occur over the same data line and inverted data line.

Semiconductor memory device using shared data line for read/write operation

A write line circuit includes a power supply node configured to carry a power supply voltage level, a reference node configured to carry a reference voltage level, a first input node configured to receive a first data signal, a second input node configured to receive a second data signal, a third input node configured to receive a control signal, and an output node. The write line circuit is configured to, responsive to the first data signal, the second data signal, and the control signal, either output one of the power supply voltage level or the reference voltage level on the output node, or float the output node.

Floating data line circuits and methods

In some embodiments, a memory device includes a memory bank, a global data line, a first tri-state unit, a latch, a second tri-state unit and a pre-charge unit. The first tri-state unit is configured between the memory bank and the global data line. The latch is configured to provide a state signal based on a data signal from the memory bank. The second tri-state unit is configured between the global data line and the latch. The pre-charge unit pre-charges the global data line to a first intermediate level or a second intermediate level depending on the state signal during the global data line is caused to be electrically isolated from the memory bank by the first tri-state unit and electrically isolated from the latch by the second tri-state unit.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Manish Arora