Renesas Technology Corp.

Hitachi Ulsi Systems Co., Ltd.

Toshihiro Araki

Toshio Yamada

Takeo Kanai

Shinichi Ozawa

Yoshio Takazawa

Minoru Katoh

Koudou Yamauchi

A semiconductor integrated circuit has a memory which can enter active state or standby state, and the memory has voltage generation circuits for bit lines and source lines with which memory cells are connected. The voltage generation circuits make the potential of the bit lines and the potential of the source lines equal to each other in response to an instruction to transition from active state to standby state. The voltage generation circuits produce a potential difference between the bit lines and the source lines in response to an instruction to transition from standby state to active state. In standby state, the potential of the bit lines and that of the source lines are equal to each other. Therefore, sub-threshold leakage does not occur between the source and drain of each memory cell. In active state, the source line potential is not varied.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and IC card

Growing community of inventors

Dazaifu, Japan

Toshihiro Araki