High performance, low cell stress, low power, SOI CMOS latch-type sensing method and apparatus

摘要

A high performance, low cell stress, low-power silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) latch-type sensing method and apparatus are provided. A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) latch-type sense amplifier includes a precharge circuit for charging complementary bit and data lines to a predefined precharge voltage during a precharge cycle. The precharge voltage is lower than a full rail voltage. The reduced bit and data line precharge voltage substantially reduces voltage stress applied to the access transistors in the RAM cells. A pre-amplifying mechanism produces an offset voltage between the complementary data lines before the. sense amplifier is set. The pre-amplifying mechanism includes a pre-amplifying FET that is substantially smaller than a sensing silicon-on-insulator (SOI) field effect transistor (FET) in the sense amplifier. The pre-amplifying mechanism aids offset voltage development before the sense amplifier is set. The full rail voltage is provided for the complementary data lines when the sense amplifier is set. The full rail voltage can be applied during the write mode.