Hyundai Electronics America, Inc.

Paul Lazar

Ray Pinkham

Cheow F Yeo

A dynamic random access memory circuit achieves much higher data bandwidth by maximizing the number of memory cell rows that are held open and by indefinitely increasing the time that the rows are open. The boosted voltage of a pump circuit is directed to active rows according to the presence of a pump token. The pump token is present at one location in a circular shift register corresponding to a memory array. The concurrence of the token and a pump-enable signal causes that array to receive a boosted voltage independent of an array-select operation.

Pump control circuit

A method of improving the boosted wordline compliance of a memory circuit. A wordline is grounded prior to boosting with a voltage greater than the circuit bias voltage (e.g. vdd) from a boost voltage generator. Grounding the wordline pulls the gate of a pass transistor to the bias voltage minus a threshold voltage and prepares the pass transistor to self-boost upon boosting the wordline. The transconductance of the pass transistor is improved, improving the charge transfer from the boost generator to the wordline, decreasing rise time. In another embodiment, an isolation transistor between the wordline select circuit and the pass transistor is boosted to provide additional pass transistor gate voltage.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Paul Lazar