Lsi Logic Corporation

Ramnath Ventatraman

Ruggero Castagnetti

Subramanian Ramesh

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for providing dual-port capability to an SRAM array. The internal nodes of two single-port memory cells are connected to each other through metal-layer programming to form a dual-port memory cell. In a preferred embodiment, a split word line design is used for each single-port memory cell, to facilitate dual-port memory access while minimizing the need for IC layout space. An additional benefit of the present invention is that it allows &ldquo;slices&rdquo; of a memory array to be converted into dual-port memory, so as to allow both single-port and dual-port memory cells in the same memory array.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ramnath Ventatraman