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A novel voltage-type sense amplifier for low-power nonvolatile memories

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Abstract

Based on the requirements of the nonvolatile memories embedded in ultra low-power RFID transponders, a novel voltage-type sense amplifier is designed to achieve both the reduced reading power and the improved reliability. Compared to the conventional voltage-type sense amplifier, the additional capacitor and current limiter are introduced in the novel voltage-type sense amplifier to reduce the reading power and to improve the reading reliability. The simulations show that the reading power and reliability of our voltage-type sense amplifier are superior to the previously reported voltage-type sense amplifier without speed loss but with only a little increased area. A testing chip has been fabricated based on 0.18 μm EEPROM technology to verify the design. The novel voltage-type sense amplifier can be implemented to the low-power nonvolatile memory embedded in RFID transponder.

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Correspondence to Ming Li.

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Li, M., Kang, J. & Wang, Y. A novel voltage-type sense amplifier for low-power nonvolatile memories. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 53, 1676–1681 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-010-4015-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-010-4015-8

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