Patent · US Expired

Trench-capacitor-one-transistor storage cell and array for dynamic random access memories

US5198995A · kind A · utility

47Cited by
7References
8Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 30, 1990
Grant dateMar 30, 1993
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 30, 2010

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH10B12/37
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Lightly Depleted PMOS (LDP) substrate-plate trench-capacitor (SPT) cell Array architecture is disclosed including three types of devices: An enhancement NMOS transistor (ENMOS) which has a n+ poly gate with a positive threshold voltage range, an enhancement PMOS transistor (EPMOS) having a p+ poly gate with a negative threshold voltage range, and a lightly depleted PMOS transistor (LDPMOS) having a p+ poly gate. The LDPMOS is used as the access transistor in the SPT cell with body biased at the power supply voltage VDD, and can also be used in the write drivers. A sense amplifier is included which is a CMOS cross-coupled latch. An n-well is biased at a lower voltage than VDD, such as (VDD--Vg) where Vg is the silicon bandgap, and the lower thresholds enhance faster sensing. The CMOS cross-coupled latch is activated by turning on latching devices. The bitlines are prevented from charging to greater than VDD--Vg, which could cause the array devices of unselected cells to conduct current and alter the stored low-voltage state of such cells.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.