Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Sabine Schoniger

Thomas Hein

Stefan Dietrich

Peter Schrogmeier

Thilo Marx

Michael Markert

Musa Saglam

In a semiconductor memory, bit lines are disposed in such a way that in each case two inverted and two non-inverted bit lines lie next to one another. Adjacent switching transistors for connecting the bit lines to an inverted or a non-inverted collective line are connected to the corresponding collective line by a common contact. An advantage in terms of area is afforded by the fact that the two switching transistors have a common doping region.

Semiconductor memory having differential bit lines

The integrated memory has a data line pair, which is connected to a bit line pair via at least one differential amplifier. In addition, it has a control unit for setting first potential states on the data line pair which correspond to the differential signals of data to be written to the memory cells, and for setting at least one second potential state on the data line pair which does not correspond to any datum to be written to the memory cells. Furthermore, it has a detector unit having two inputs connected to the data line pair. The detector unit initiates a specific control function when the second potential state of the data line pair occurs.

Integrated memory

The integrated memory has byte selection lines for selecting all the bit lines of a respective byte, as well as masking signals that are allocated to the respective byte of at least one word. In addition, the memory has a column decoder with outputs which are connected to the word selection lines, each of which, when addressed, causes all the byte selection lines for one of the words to be simultaneously selected if none of the masking signals are active. The masking signals, when activated, prevent the addressed word selection line from selecting the byte selection lines, allocated to a corresponding byte, for a corresponding word.

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Sabine Schoniger