High speed sense amplifier circuit for low-voltage SONOS memory systems

In this paper, a new high speed sense amplifier with high voltage driven load and inner multiple power supplies techniques for 0.9 V power supply embedded SONOS memory systems is proposed. High voltage driven load technique is introduced to increase the voltage swing on the data-line and to improve the sensing speed. Inner multiple power supplies technique is adopted to improve sensing speed by increasing the input range and the comparing speed of comparator under low power supply. The sense amplifier was implemented in CMOS compatible embedded SONOS technology. Simulation results show that the sensing delay is 1.7 ns under the typical condition with 0.9 V power supply