Hitachi, Ltd.

Nobuyuki Gotou

Yutaka Kobayashi

Masahiro Iwamura

Tatsumi Yamauchi

Atsushi Hiraishi

Takashi Akioka

Yuji Yokoyama

Akira Ide

Shigeru Takahashi

Nozomu Matsuzaki

Hideaki Uchida

Masahiro Yamamura

A semiconductor device which includes at least one of (1) an input buffer circuit formed of an input level converter and a non-inverting buffer circuit and an inverting buffer circuit each including BiCMOS circuitry which effects high-speed operation; (2) a decoder circuit formed of plural logic gates each of which is composed of the combination of MOS and bipolar circuitry; (3) a sense amplifier circuit including a multiemitter transistor; (4) a signal or address transition detector circuit which includes input circuits each receiving, for example, an address signal of a voltage amplitude and outputting a current amplitude signal in response to a change in level of the address signal, and a detector circuit connected thereto which has a cascode amplifier arranged such that it receives current amplitude signals at an input thereof and in which the cascode amplifier input is maintained at a substantially constant voltage, in which the detection circuit detects a transition of one or more of the current amplitude signals and, in response thereto, generates an ATD signal of a voltage amplitude; and (5) an output buffer circuit, in which the decoder, sense amplifier and output buffer of the device such as for a memory are controlled in accordance with signals from a clock generator, which is responsive to the ATD signal.

Signal transition detector circuit

An arrangement which is particularly effective for decoders in semiconductor memory circuits which use, for example, common NMOS to receive one input for a plurality of logic decoder gates is provided includes a plurality of logic gates each having a first input terminal for respectively receiving first input signals and each being coupled to a common node. In one embodiment, first and second switching elements are also coupled to the common node. The first and second switching elements are both coupled to a second input terminal for receiving a second input signal which is common to the plurality of logic gates, and both operate complementary to one another in response to the second input signal. An improved read/write arrangement is also provided for such semiconductor memory circuit which includes circuitry to prevent connection of a common read line to the data lines during the writing operation. This enhances the writing speed by removing the load of the common read line during writing.

Semiconductor integrated circuit having logi gates

A semiconductor memory device which includes at least one of (1) an input buffer circuit which generates internal address signals in response to an incoming address; (2) a decoder circuit formed of plural logic gates each of which is composed of the combination of MOS and bipolar circuitry; (3) a sense amplifier circuit including a multiemitter transistor; (4) a signal or address transition detector circuit which includes input circuits each receiving, for example, an address signal of a voltage amplitude and outputting a current amplitude signal in response to a change in level of the address signal, and a detector circuit connected thereto which has a cascode amplifier arranged such that it receives current amplitude signals at an input thereof and in which the cascode amplifier input is maintained at a substantially constant voltage, in which the detection circuit detects a transition of one or more of the current amplitude signals and, in response thereto, generates an ATD signal of a voltage amplitude; and (5) an output buffer circuit, in which the decoder, sense amplifier and output buffer of the device are controlled in accordance with signals from a clock generator, which is responsive to the ATD signal.

Semiconductor device

An arrangement which is particularly effective for decoders in semiconductor memory circuits which use, for example, common NMOS to receive one input for a plurality of logic decoder gates is provided includes a plurality of logic gates each having a first input terminal for respectively receiving first input signals, and each being coupled to a common node. In one embodiment, first and second switching elements are also coupled to the common node. The first and second switching elements are both coupled to a second input terminal for receiving a second input signal which is common to the plurality of logic gates, and both operate complementary to one another in response to the second input signal. An improved read/write arrangement is also provided for such semiconductor memory circuits which includes circuitry to prevent connection of a common read line to the data lines during the writing operation. This enhances the writing speed by removing the load of the common read line during writing.

Semiconductor integrated circuit having logic gates

A semiconductor integrated logic circuit is provided which includes a plurality of logic gates each having a first input terminal for respectively receiving first input signals, wherein each of the logic gates is coupled to a common node. In one embodiment, first and second switching elements are also coupled to the common node. The first and second switching elements are both coupled to a second input terminal for receiving a second input signal which is common to the plurality of logic gates, and both operate complementary to one another in response to the second input signal. This arrangement is particularly effective for decoders in semiconductor memory circuits which use a common NMOS to receive one input for a plurality of logic decoder gates. An improved read/write arrangement is also provided for semiconductor memory circuits which includes circuitry to prevent connection of a common read line to the data lines during the writing operation. This enhances the writing speed by removing the load of the common read line during writing.

Growing community of inventors

Takasaki, Japan

Nobuyuki Gotou