Bipolar reading technique for a memory cell having an electrically floating body transistor

Abstract

A technique of sampling, sensing, reading and/or determining the data state of a memory cell (of, for example, a memory cell array) including an electrically floating body transistor. In this regard, the intrinsic bipolar transistor current component is employed to read and/or determine the data state of the electrically floating body memory cell. During the read operation, the data state is determined primarily by or read (or sensed) substantially using the bipolar current component responsive to the read control signals and significantly less by the interface channel current component, which is negligible relative to the bipolar component. The bipolar transistor current component may be very sensitive to the floating body potential due to the high gain of the intrinsic bipolar transistor of the electrically floating body transistor. As such, the programming window obtainable with this reading technique may be considerably higher than the programming window employing a conventional reading technique (which is based primarily on the interface channel current component).