Title :
Design and analysis of a high-performance sense amplifier for phase-change memory
Author :
Li Xi ; Chen Hou-Peng ; Song Zhi-Tang
Author_Institution :
State Key Lab. of Functional Mater. for Inf., Chinese Acad. of Sci., Shanghai, China
Abstract :
This paper presents a high-performance sense amplifier and its operation method for phase change memory (PCM). The proposed structure includes pre-charge circuit, judgment circuit, bias circuit and discharge circuit. Correspondingly, the read process includes four steps of pre-charging, relaxing, sensing and discharging. Simulation results show that the proposed sense amplifier can read out the cell status efficiently in 180 ns both at low resistance (10K ohm) and high resistance (100 K ohm) with the parasitic capacitance of 20 pF. It will be used in 40 nm 1 Gbit phase change memory chip.
Keywords :
amplifiers; phase change memories; bias circuit; discharge circuit; high-performance sense amplifier; judgment circuit; phase-change memory; pre-charge circuit; Discharges; MOSFETs; Parasitic capacitance; Phase change random access memory; Resistance; Simulation; IC; phase change memory; sense amplifier;
Conference_Titel :
Computer Research and Development (ICCRD), 2011 3rd International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Shanghai
Print_ISBN :
978-1-61284-839-6
DOI :
10.1109/ICCRD.2011.5764204
