Other

Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Device Engineering Co., Ltd.

Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi Ulsi Systems Co., Ltd.

Takeshi Kusunoki

Hiroaki Nambu

Kazuo Kanetani

Kaname Yamasaki

Fumihiko Arakawa

Keiichi Higeta

Kunihiko Yamaguchi

Kenichi Ohhata

Makoto Hanawa

Noboru Masuda

Kenji Kaneko

Toru Masuda

Youji Idei

Takeshi Suzuki

Shigeru Nakahara

Nobuhiro Shiramizu

The invention provides a transceiver circuit for communication that enhances the operation frequency of a synchronous digital circuit up to the maximum frequency of a flip-flop and inhibits the occurrence of jitters. A clock signal synchronized with data at f/n Hz is converted by a multiplier so that the signal has a frequency of 'n' times so as to use the clock signal for triggering a flip-flop the operation frequency of which is fb/s in the synchronous digital circuit. The multiplier is arranged in the vicinity of the flip-flop triggered by the clock signal of fHz so as to avoid the effect of the deterioration of the operation frequency by interconnect capacitance. The maximum operation frequency of the transceiver circuit determined based upon the operating frequency of the synchronous digital circuit can be enhanced up to the maximum operation frequency of the flip-flop. As a margin can be produced in designing a frequency band of a clock signal processing circuit, the reduction of power consumption, the reduction of phase noise and the extension of a control frequency range can be realized.

Receiver circuit and transmitter circuit

To speed up the operation of a decoder circuit, reduce the power consumption of the decoder circuit and increase the cycle, each circuit such as a buffer, a predecoder and a main decoder in the decoder circuit includes a semiconductor logic circuit in which the number of columns of transistors for pulling down at an output node is small, even if the number of inputs is many and the true and a complementary output signal having approximately the same delay time are acquired and the output pulse length of each circuit in the decoder circuit is reduced. With this arrangement, the operation of the decoder circuit can be sped up, the power consumption can be reduced, the cycles can be increased and, in a semiconductor memory, for example, access time and power consumption can be reduced and the cycles can be increased.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and semiconductor logic circuit used in the integrated circuit

In a dynamic-type semiconductor integrated circuit in which precharge and evaluation operations are preformed per cycle, an IDDQ test and a light detection test can be conducted during an evaluation period for facilitating diagnosis and failure analysis so as to increase test accuracy. The dynamic-type semiconductor integrated circuit operates in a normal operation mode or a test mode, wherein a switch therebetween is triggered by a mode selection signal. In the normal operation mode, the pulse width of an internal activation signal is controlled to be constant, i.e., invariable with an operation cycle time length. In the test mode, the pulse width of the internal activation signal is controlled to vary according to an operation cycle time length.

Method of testing a semiconductor integrated device

A semiconductor integrated circuit device includes a first variable delay circuit which delays a timing signal for activating a sense amplifier which is supplied with a signal read out from a memory array and amplifies the signal so that a timing difference between a dummy signal read out from a dummy memory cell and the timing signal of the sense amplifier is detected by a detection circuit to be made small in accordance with an output of the detection circuit, and a second variable delay circuit which adjusts a relative timing difference between the dummy signal and the timing signal of the sense amplifier.

Semiconductor integration circuit device

Semiconductor integrated circuit

A clocked logic gate circuit is constituted so that a switch unit is constituted by a logic block and a reference MOS transistor, the source of the reference MOS transistor is connected to one output of the logic block, the gate of the reference MOS transistor is connected to the other output of the logic block, and MOS transistors (input transistors) constituting the logic block are connected in parallel. With this arrangement, complementary inputs are not required and a driving MOS transistor and an input transistor (or a driving MOS transistor and a reference MOS transistor) can be connected in series. As a result, a circuit is obtained which is simpler than the double rail logic in constitution is facilitated and can be operated at a higher speed than a CMOS logic circuit and a path transistor logic circuit.

Clocked logic gate circuit

A transmission circuit for transmitting a data signal between circuit units through a signal wire. The data signal is transmitted for precharging the signal wire to high potential during a precharge period and discharging it to low potential according to data transmitted during an evaluation period or keeping the signal wire as it is. Latch type Source-Coupled-Logic is configured so that a first node and a second node used as an output terminal to the next stage are respectively charged together to high potential during the precharge period. The second node is discharged according to a potential at the first node during the evaluation period, and the first node is discharged according to a potential on the signal wire. Thus, the operation of discharging the signal wire by the driver circuit can be sped up.

Signal transmission circuit and semiconductor memory using the same

To speed up the operation of a decoder circuit, reduce the power consumption of the decoder circuit and increase the cycle, each circuit such as a buffer, a predecoder and a main decoder in the decoder circuit include a semiconductor logic circuit wherein the number of columns of transistors for pulling down an output node is small even if the number of inputs is large, and the true output signal and a complementary output signal having approximately the same delay time are acquired and the output pulse length of each circuit in the decoder circuit is reduced. By virtue of this arrangement, the operation of the decoder circuit can be sped up, the power consumption can be reduced, the cycles can be increased and, in a semiconductor memory, for example, the reduction of access time and power consumption and the increase of the cycles are enabled.

A transmission circuit for transmitting a data signal between circuit units through a signal wire. The data signal is transmitted for precharging the signal wire to high potential during a precharge period and discharging it to low potential according to data transmitted during an evaluation period or keeping the signal wire as it is. Latch type Source-Coupled-Logic as configured so that a first node and a second node used as an output terminal to the next stage are respectively charged together to high potential during the precharge period. The second node is discharged according to potential at the first node during the evaluation period, and the first node is discharged according to a potential on the signal wire. Thus, the operation of discharging the signal wire by the driver circuit can be sped up.

Disclosed herein is a transmission circuit for transmitting a data signal between circuit units on a semiconductor integrated circuit through a signal wire. The data signal is transmitted by a driver circuit for precharging the signal wire to a high potential during a precharge period and discharging the signal wire to a low potential according to data to be transmitted during an evaluation period or keeping the signal wire at a high potential as floating as it is. Latch type Source-Coupled-Logic configured so that a first node and a second node used as an output terminal to the next stage are respectively charged together to a high potential during the precharge period, the second node is discharged according to a potential at the first node during the evaluation period, and the first node is discharged according to a potential on the signal wire, is used as a receiving circuit, whereby a distinction as to a high or low level of the potential on the signal wire is made with early timing provided to perform the operation of discharging the signal wire by the driver circuit.

One of the factors determining cycle time of an SRAM is recovery time of a bit line after writing. When the size of a precharge PMOS transistor is increased to shorten the recovery time, delay time which is caused by making the precharge PMOS transistors non-conductive at the time of read operation, that is, access time increases. To avoid this, a semiconductor memory is provided with a second precharge circuit in addition to the conventional bit line precharge circuit. The second precharge circuit operates upon detection of completion of writing and stops operation when it detects that the bit line is precharged to a high potential. Consequently, the recovery time after write operation is shortened and the cycle time is reduced without increasing the access time.

Semiconductor memory

A semiconductor memory in accordance with the present invention includes a sense amplifier composed of a plurality of MOS transistors. When the sense amplifier is on standby, a first control circuit brings an input signal of the sense amplifier to zero. A second control circuit uses voltages developed because of an offset voltage occurring in the sense amplifier to feed back the potentials in the wells of the MOS transistors so that the offset voltage will be nullified. When the offset voltage occurring in the sense amplifier is nullified, a delay time required by the sense amplifier is shortened. This results in the high-speed semiconductor memory.

Growing community of inventors

Tachikawa, Japan

Takeshi Kusunoki