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:
Oct. 15, 2013
Filed:
Nov. 22, 2010
Mihail Jefremow, Augsburg, DE;
Thomas Kern, Munich, DE;
Ullrich Menczigar, Vaterstetten, DE;
Ulrich Backhausen, Taufkirchen, DE;
Mihail Jefremow, Augsburg, DE;
Thomas Kern, Munich, DE;
Ullrich Menczigar, Vaterstetten, DE;
Ulrich Backhausen, Taufkirchen, DE;
Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, DE;
Abstract
Some embodiments of the invention relate to a sense amplifier configured to determine the slope of a bitline charging voltage and to utilize the determined slope in combination with a voltage level sensing scheme to aid in reading data from a memory cell associated with the bitline. In particular, a sense amplifier circuit is configured to determine a slope of a bit line charging voltage and based upon the determined slope to adjust the slope of the bitline voltage (e.g., by adding a dynamic slope dependent current to a memory cell current configured to charge the bitline) provided to a sense amplifier. By adjusting the slope of the bitline voltage, the charging speed of memory cells in a low resistive state (e.g., having a high cell current and therefore a good SNR) can be increased.