Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD (대한전자공학회논문지SD)

The Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers (대한전자공학회)
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Design of the Embedded EPROM Circuits Aiming at Low Voltage Operation

저 전압동작을 위한 내장형 EPROM회로설계

  • 최상신 (하이닉스 반도체 MCU설계) ;
  • 김성식 (하이닉스 반도체 MCU설계) ;
  • 조경록 (충북대학교 정보통신공학과)
  • Published : 2003.06.01
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Abstract

In the embedded system, EPROM is difficult to replace a mask ROM for the applications using battery, because the low voltage characteristic of an EPROM is inferior to that of a mask ROM. In this paper, the new circuits such as a word line voltage hoosier scheme and a sense amplifier without reference input for an embedded EPROM in MCU are proposed. The circuits can detect bit line voltage a predetermined level, which is caused by the degradation of the battery. We fabricated a MCU embedded 32Kbytes EPROM. The proposed circuits well operated at 1.5V supply voltage and thus the low voltage performance was improved by about 30%.

본 논문에서는 MCU에 내장된 EPROM의 저 전압 동작을 위한 새로운 회로구조를 제안하였다. MCU에 내장된 EPROM은 일반적으로 마스크 롬에 비해 저 전압 특성이 떨어지며, 배터리를 사용하여 전원전압이 시간이 경과할수록 감소하는 응용분야에서는 마스크 롬을 내장한 MCU와 대체가 되지 않는 문제가 발생한다. 본 논문에서는 EPROM의 저 전압 동작을 위해 전원전압이 특정전압이하로 낮아지면 이를 검출하여 EPROM의 워드라인의 전압을 승압시키는 회로와 기준 셀을 사용하지 않고 전류를 감지하는 센스앰프를 제안하여 저 전압 특성이 30%이상 개선된 1.5V에서 동작하는 EPROM 내장 MCU를 설계, 구현, 검증하였다.

Keywords

References

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