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:
Aug. 08, 2017
Filed:
Mar. 15, 2016
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., San Diego, CA (US);
Industry-academic Cooperation Foundation, Yonsei University, Seoul, KR;
Seong-Ook Jung, Seoul, KR;
Byung Kyu Song, Seoul, KR;
Taehui Na, Seoul, KR;
Jung Pill Kim, San Diego, CA (US);
Seung Hyuk Kang, San Diego, CA (US);
QUALCOMM Technologies, Inc., San Diego, CA (US);
Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Yonsei University, Seoul, KR;
Abstract
Non-volatile (NV)-content addressable memory (CAM) (NV-CAM) cells employing differential magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensing for increased sense margin are disclosed. By the NV-CAM cells employing MTJ differential sensing, differential cell voltages can be generated for match and mismatch conditions in response to search operations. The differential cell voltages are amplified to provide a larger match line voltage differential for match and mismatch conditions, thus providing a larger sense margin between match and mismatch conditions. For example, a cross-coupled transistor sense amplifier employing positive feedback may be employed to amplify the differential cell voltages to provide a larger match line voltage differential for match and mismatch conditions. Providing NV-CAM cells that have a larger sense margin can mitigate sensing issues for increased search operation reliability. One non-limiting example of an NV-CAM cell that employs MTJ differential sensing is a ten (10) transistor (10T)-four (4) MTJ (10T-4MTJ) NV-TCAM cell.