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:
Jun. 09, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 28, 1997
Younes Lotfi, Round Rock, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An improved decoder apparatus and method for memory-array read operations are presented. The improved decoder apparatus includes a number of row decoder circuits such that each row decoder circuit includes a footed domino circuit having a pull-down device located within a pull-down path of the footed domino circuit. The improved decoder apparatus further includes a common shared node coupled to each pull-down device such that the shared common node allows the pull-down strength of each pull-down device to be increased proportionally to the number of row decoder circuits which share the common shared node, thereby promoting increased decoding operational rates and faster memory-array read operations. The pull-down device can be an N-type pull-down device. In addition, each row decoder circuit includes an address predecoder, coupled to the footed domino circuit, that receives a number of address inputs and combines address inputs into a single digital signal for utilization by the improved decoder apparatus. In addition each row decoder circuit includes a wordline driver circuit, coupled to the footed domino circuit, for providing an output of the decoder apparatus to a wordline. The improved decoder apparatus decodes address data submitted in 2B encoded format.