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:
Mar. 30, 2004
Filed:
Jul. 02, 2002
Applicant:
Inventors:
Juergen T. Rickes, Cupertino, CA (US);
Hugh P. McAdams, McKinney, TX (US);
Assignee:
Other;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G11C 2/900 ; G11C 7/00 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G11C 2/900 ; G11C 7/00 ;
Abstract
A method and circuit for measuring a charge distribution for readout from a memory such as a FeRAM uses on-chip compression of bit line voltage measurements. One embodiment includes a compression circuit coupled to sense amplifiers. Each sense amplifier compares a series of reference voltages to a corresponding bit line and sets a result value for the comparison. A series of result values from a sense amplifier has a transition when the bit line voltage is approximately equal to the reference voltage. The compression circuit can use the transition as a trigger to record a compressed value indicating the reference voltage at the transition.