Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Sgs-Thomson Microelectronics S.r.l.

Pier Luigi Rolandi

Marco Pasotti

Roberto Antonio Canegallo

Giovanni Guaitini

Giovanni Gozzini

Alan H Kramer

Marco Sabatini

Mauro Chinosi

Guido De Sandre

Ernestina Chioffi

Danilo Gerna

Marco Poles

Michele Borgatti

David Iezzi

Alessandro Rocchi

Mauro Scandiuzzo

Claudio Mucci

Salvatore Valerio Cani

Frank Lhermet

Marco Bisio

Philip Leong

Lorenzo Cali'

Chantal Auricchio

Marco Onorato

Michele Quarantelli

Francesco Lertora

Giovani Guaitini

Cedric Issartel

An asynchronous level shifter electronic circuit including: a transmitter, which can be coupled to a first voltage and generates a communication signal; a receiver, which can be coupled to a second voltage; and a capacitive coupling stage, which receives the communication signal and supplies a corresponding filtered signal to the receiver. The receiver includes: a threshold device, which has an input terminal and an output terminal and switches an electrical quantity on the output terminal between a first value and a second value, as a function of corresponding transitions through a threshold of a first intermediate signal present on the input terminal, to generate a second intermediate signal; and a biasing circuit, which generates the first intermediate signal to have a d.c. component, which is a function of the second intermediate signal, and superposed on which is a variable component, which is a function of the filtered signal.

Capacitive coupling, asynchronous electronic level shifter circuit

A dynamically reconfigurable processing unit includes a microprocessor, and an embedded Flash memory for non-volatile storage of code, data and bit-streams. The embedded Flash includes a field programmable gate array (FPGA) port. The reconfigurable processing unit further includes a direct memory access (DMA) channel, and an S-RAM embedded FPGA for FPGA reconfigurations. The S-RAM embedded FPGA has an FPGA programming interface connected to the FPGA port of the Flash memory through the DMA channel. The microprocessor, the embedded Flash memory, the DMA channel and the S-RAM embedded FPGA are integrated as a single chip.

Reconfigurable signal processing IC with an embedded flash memory device

An application-specific embeddable flash memory having three content-specific I/O ports and delivering a peak read throughput of 1.2 GB/s. The memory is combined with a special automatic programming gate voltage ramp generator circuit having a programming rate of 1 Mbyte/s for non-volatile storage of code, data, and embedded FPGA bit stream configurations. The test chip uses a NOR-type 0.18 &#x3bc;m flash embedded technology with 1.8V power supply, two poly, six metal and memory cell size of 0.35 &#x3bc;m.

Embeddable flash memory system for non-volatile storage of code, data and bit-streams for embedded FPGA configurations

A nonvolatile switch has: an input terminal; an output terminal; a selection terminal; a first and a second biasing terminal; a memory element of flash type, having a first conduction region connected to the first biasing terminal and a second conduction region connected to the second biasing terminal; a pass transistor, having a first conduction region connected to the input terminal and a second conduction region connected to the output terminal; and a common floating gate region and a common control gate region, which are capacitively coupled together. The memory element and the pass transistor share the common-gate regions, and the common control gate region is connected to the selection terminal.

Nonvolatile switch, in particular for high-density nonvolatile programmable-logic devices

A non-volatile semiconductor memory device including an output connected to a row line and two supply terminals. Each elementary stage has an upper branch with a p-channel MOS transistor and a lower branch with an n-channel MOS transistor. In order to permit the memory to be erased line by line without having to use components capable of withstanding high voltages, each elementary stage has two supplementary MOS transistors, namely an n-channel transistor in the upper branch and a p-channel transistor in the lower branch. In this way it becomes possible to bias the elementary stages in such a manner the in the reading and programming phases the upper branch will function as pull-up and the lower branch as pull-down, while in the erasure phase the upper branch functions as pull-down and the lower branch as pull-up.

EEPROM flash memory erasable line by line

It is described a programming method for a multilevel memory cell able to store a plurality of bits in a plurality of levels. The method comprises the phases of: initially programming a cell threshold value to a first set of levels &lsqb;0;(m&minus;1)&rsqb; being m a submultiple of the plurality of levels of the multilevel cell; reprogramming without erasing another set of levels &lsqb;m;(2m&minus;1)&rsqb; containing the same number m of levels as the first set; reiterating the reprogramming without erasing phase until the levels of the multilevel cell are exhausted. It is also described a multilevel memory device of the type comprising a plurality of multilevel memory cells organized into sectors, the sectors being themselves split into a plurality of data units wherein a data updating operation is performed in parallel, the data units being programmed by means of the programming method.

Programming method for a multilevel memory cell

A digital device for testing and calibrating the oscillation frequency of an integrated oscillator circuit, the testing and calibrating device has as input at least first and second control parameters corresponding to limiting values of a predetermined range of values of the oscillation frequency sought for the integrated oscillator circuit, and it includes a comparison circuit for comparing a signal of known duration and a signal from the integrated oscillator circuit; a circuit connected to the comparison circuit, for generating calibration values for the signal from the integrated oscillator circuit; and a circuit for forcing storage of final calibration values of the signal from the integrated oscillator circuit into a storage and control section of the integrated oscillator circuit.

Device for testing and calibrating the oscillation frequency of an integrated oscillator

A FLASH memory is organized in a plurality of physical sectors which may be split into a plurality of singularly addressable logic sectors. Each logic sector may include a memory space of a predetermined size and a chain pointer assuming a neutral value or a value pointing to a second logic sector associated with a respective chain pointer at the neutral value. Each logic sector may also include a status indicator assuming at least one of a first value if the logic sector is empty, a second value if the data therein belongs to the logic sector, a third value if the data does not belong to the logic sector, and a fourth value if the data has been erased. Further, each logic sector may include a remap pointer assuming the neutral value or a value pointing directly or indirectly to the chain pointer of a third logic sector.

Logic partitioning of a nonvolatile memory array

A sensing circuit for sensing a memory cell, the sensing circuit having a first circuit branch electrically connectable to the memory cell to receive a memory cell current, the first circuit branch having at least one first transistor that, when the first circuit branch is connected to the memory cell, is coupled thereto substantially in a cascode configuration. A bias current generator is operatively associated with the first transistor for forcing a bias current to flow therethrough.

Sensing circuit for memory cells

A method and circuit computes a Discrete Cosine Transform in a more efficient manner for improving the computation speed, thereby reducing the computation time and allowing a higher number of digital samples to be processed. The circuit provides a microcontroller that includes a parallel accumulation multiplier for performing a first transform of the input data. A further quantization step is then performed on the transformed data. Likewise, the method includes the first transform being computed by the parallel accumulation multiplier. A further quantization step is performed on the transformed data. In this respect, the method and circuit provides good performance in terms of compression rate.

Method and circuit for computing the discrete cosine transform (DCT) in microcontrollers

A reading circuit having an array branch connected via an array bit line to an array memory cell, the content of which is to be read; a reference branch connected via a reference bit line to a current generator stage supplying a reference current; a current/voltage converter stage connected to the array branch and to the reference branch, and supplying at an array node and at a reference node respectively an array potential and a reference potential, which are correlated to the currents flowing respectively in the array branch and in the reference branch; a comparator stage connected to the array node and the reference node for comparing the array and reference potentials; a sample and hold stage arranged between the array node and the comparator stage and selectively operable to sample and hold the array potential; and a switching off stage for switching off the array branch.

Reading method and circuit for a non-volatile memory

The optimized soft programming method is used in a memory consisting of a plurality of cells that are grouped into sectors. The cells that belong to a single sector have gate terminals connected to a plurality of word lines, and drain terminals connected to a plurality of local bit lines. The soft programming method consists of selecting at least one local bit line in the sector, and simultaneously selecting all the word lines in the same sector. A corresponding gate voltage is applied to all the word lines, whereas a constant drain voltage, with a pre-determined value is applied to the local bit line.

Soft programming method for non-volatile memory cells

The device comprises a current mirror circuit having a first and a second node connected, respectively, to a constant current source and to a drain terminal of a memory cell to be programmed. A voltage generating circuit is connected to the first node to bias it at a constant reference voltage (V ); an operational amplifier has an inverting input connected to the first node, a non-inverting input connected to the second node, and an output connected to the control terminal of the memory cell. Thereby, the drain terminal of the memory cell is biased at the constant reference voltage, having a value sufficient for programming, and the operational amplifier and the memory cell form a negative feedback loop that supplies, on the control terminal of the memory cell, a ramp voltage (V ) that causes writing of the memory cell. The ramp voltage increases with the same speed as the threshold voltage and can thus be used to know when the desired threshold value is reached, and thus when programming must be stopped. The presence of a bias transistor between the second node and the memory cell enables use of the same circuit also during reading.

Device and method for programming nonvolatile memory cells with automatic generation of programming voltage

A reading circuit having an array branch connected to a multi-level array memory cell; a reference branch connected to a reference memory cell; a current/voltage converter stage formed of a current mirror having a variable mirror ratio, connected to the array and reference branches, and supplying at an array node and at a reference node respectively an array potential and a reference potential, which are correlated respectively to the currents flowing in the array branch and in the reference branch; and a comparator stage having a first and a second input connected to the array and reference nodes for comparing with one another the array and reference potentials.

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Monleale, Italy

Pier Luigi Rolandi