Bitline Precharging and Preamplifying Switching pMOS for High-Speed Low-Power SRAM

A pMOS transistor with a switch is used for two purposes in a differential bitline: precharging and preamplifying during a read operation. These functions are realized by alternately changing the connection of the drain of the switching pMOS according to the operating mode. By using the same pMOS for precharging and preamplifying, the variability of a sense amplifier can be tracked, which can effectively reduce the bitline swing for the read operation. Moreover, because of the lowered bitline precharge level in the proposed scheme, the read stability is improved, as compared with that of the conventional scheme. Thus, a higher wordline voltage can be used to further improve the speed. Consequently, the delay and energy in the bitline are reduced by 1.85-5.88 times and 35%-70%, respectively, according to the supply voltage and number of cells per bitline, with a negligible area overhead of 0.9%.