The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 13, 1996
Filed:
Jun. 27, 1994
Saverio Pezzini, Vimercate, IT;
SGS-Thomson Microelectronics S.r.l., Agrate Brianza, IT;
Abstract
A method is provided for directly reading the current of cells of a memory forming part of a microcontroller by performing a write operation of the cells and using the existing cell programming logic. For this purpose, the programming voltage supply line is supplied with a low voltage (e.g., 1 V); the word line of the cell for reading is enabled; and a write instruction of a data item having a predetermined logic level (e.g., zero) is performed at the bit corresponding to the cell for reading. By providing an additional pass transistor connected to each reference bit line (RBL) and an additional reference cell enabling line (REF-EN), the reference cells may also be read directly.