• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.776-780
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• 2007

In this paper, the charge pump circuit of a VPP generator for a low voltage DRAM is newly proposed. The proposed charge pump is a 2-stage cross coupled charge pump circuit. The charge transfer efficiency is improved, and Distributed Clock Inverter is located in each charge pump stage to reduce clock period so that the pumping current is increased. In addition, the precharge circuit is located at Gate node of charge transfer transistor to solve the problem which is that the Gate node is maintained high voltage because the boosted charge can't discharge, so device reliability is decreased. The simulation result is that pumping current, pumping efficiency and power efficiency is improved. The layout of the proposed VPP generator is designed using $0.18{\mu}m$ Triple-Well process.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.7
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• pp.1-6
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• 2009

This paper presents new high speed architecture using DBI(Data Bus Inversion) in DRAM. The DBI is one of the general methods in the signaling circuits to decrease the known problems such as SSO and LSI. Many architectures have been proposed to reduce the number of transitions on the data bus. In this paper, the DBI, the Analog Majority Voter (AMV) circuit, the GIO control circuit and the SSO algorithm are newly proposed. The power consumption can he reduced with the help of direct GIO inversion method and the eye diagram of data can be increased to 40ps. Using proposed DBI scheme can produce almost stable SI of DQs against high speed operation. The DBI is fabricated in 90nm CMOS Technology.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.61-67
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• 2006

We fabricate local damascene FinFET cell array in sub-60nm feature sized DRAM. The local damascene structure can remove passing-gate-effects in FinFET cell array. p+ boron in-situ doped polysilicon is chosen for the gate material, and we obtain a uniform distribution of threshold voltages at around 0.7V. Sub-threshold swing of 75mV/d and extrapolated off-state leakage current of 0.03fA are obtained, which are much suppressed values against those of recessed channel array transistors. We also obtain a few times higher on-state current. Based on the improved on- and off-state current characteristics, we expect that the FinFET cell array could be a new mainstream structure in sub-60nm DRAM devices, satisfying high density, low power, and high-speed device requirements.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.257-263
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• 2006

New charge pump circuits with low area and high power efficiency are proposed and verified in this paper. These pump circuits do not suffer the voltage stress higher than $V_{DD}$ across their pumping capacitors. Thus they can use the thin-oxide MOSFETs as the pumping capacitors. Using the thin-oxide capacitors can reduce the area of charge pumps greatly while keeping their driving capability. Comparing the new pump (NCP-2) with the conventional pump circuit using the thick-oxide capacitors shows that the power efficiency of NCP-2 is the same with the conventional one but the area efficiency of NCP-2 is improved as much as 71.8% over the conventional one, when the $V_{PP}/V_{DD}$ ratio is 3.5 and $V_{DD}$=1.8V.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.337-345
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• 2016

Recently, as the number of cores in computer systems has increased, the need for larger memory capacity has also increased. Unfortunately, dynamic random access memory (DRAM), popularly used as main memory for decades, now faces a scalability limitation. Phase change memory (PCM) is considered one of the strong alternatives to DRAM due to its advantages, such as high scalability, non-volatility, low idle power, and so on. However, since PCM suffers from short write endurance, direct use of PCM in main memory incurs a significant problem due to its short lifetime. To solve the lifetime limitation, many studies have focused on reducing the number of bit flips per write request. In this paper, we describe the PCM operating principles in detail and explore various bit flip reduction schemes. Also, we compare their performance in terms of bit reduction rate and lifetime improvement.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.181-186
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• 2015

With the rapid growth of semiconductor technologies, small-sized devices with powerful computing abilities are becoming a reality. As this environment has a limit on power supply, NVM storage that has a high density and low power consumption is preferred to HDD or SSD. However, legacy software layers optimized for HDDs should be revisited. Specifically, as storage performance approaches DRAM performance, existing I/O mechanisms and software configurations should be reassessed. This paper explores the challenges and implications of using NVM storage with a broad range of experiments. We measure the performance of a system with NVM storage emulated by DRAM with proper timing parameters and compare it with that of HDD storage environments under various configurations. Our experimental results show that even with storage as fast as DRAM, the performance gain is not large for read operations as current I/O mechanisms do a good job hiding the slow performance of HDD. To assess the potential benefit of fast storage media, we change various I/O configurations and perform experiments to quantify the effects of existing I/O mechanisms such as buffer caching, read-ahead, synchronous I/O, direct I/O, block I/O, and byte-addressable I/O on systems with NVM storage.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.534-537
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• 1998

In this paper, a set of novel self-timed latches are introduced and analyzed. These latches have no back-to-back connection as in conventional self-timed latch, and both inverting and noninerting outputs are evaluated simultaneously leading to thigher oepating frequencies. Power consumption of these latches ar ealso comparable to or less than that of conventional circuits. Novel type of cross-coupled inverter used in the proosed circuits implements static operatin without signal fighting with the main driver during signal transition. Proposed latches ar tested using a 0.6.mu.m triple-poly triple-metal n-well CMOS technology. The resutls indicates that proposed active-low sefl-timed latch (ALSTL) improves speed by 14-34% over conventional NAND SR latch, while in active-high self-timed latch (AHSTL) the improvements are 15-35% with less power as compared with corresponding NORA SR latch. These novel latches have been successfully implemented in a high-speed synchronous DRAM (SDRAM).

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• summer
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• pp.74-76
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• 2004

A Half-VDD Voltage(VHDD) Generator using PMOS pull-up transistor and NMOS pull-down transistor was newly proposed for low-voltage DRAMs. The driving current was increased and the power-on settling time was reduced in the new circuit. The newly proposed VHDD generator worked successfully at VDD at 1.5V and fabricated using 0.18um CMOS twin-well technology.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.285-290
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• 2016

Inter-symbol interference (ISI) due to channel bandwidth limitation constrains the maximum data rate in high speed I/O. Decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is known as the most popular technique for removing ISI. To ensure fast data transmission, not only removing ISI but also raising maximum operating frequency of the circuit itself by relaxing feedback delay margin is important. For single-ended signaling, DFE should cancel out both ISI and high frequency noises. Low-power operation is as important as fast operation because required DFE elements increase as the data rate goes up. This paper surveys recent techniques for fast DFE by removing ISI and high frequency noises, and low power DFE and discusses about their merits and limitations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.77-77
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• 2011

These days, a growing demand for memory device is filled up with the flash memory and the dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Although DRAM is a reasonable solution for current demand, the universal novel memory with high density, high speed and nonvolatility, needs to be developed. Among various new memories, the magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device is considered as one of good candidate memories because of excellent features including high density, high speed, low operating power and nonvolatility. The etching of MTJ stack which is composed of magnetic materials and insulator such as MgO is one of the vital process for MRAM. Recently, MgO has attracted great interest in the MTJ stack as tunneling barrier layer for its high tunneling magnetoresistance values. For the successful realization of high density MRAM, the etching process of MgO thin films should be investigated. Until now, there were some works devoted to the investigations on etch characteristics of MgO thin films. Initially, ion milling was applied to the etching of MgO thin films. However, ion milling has many disadvantages such as sidewall redeposition and etching damage. High density plasma etching containing the magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching and high density reactive ion etching have been employed for the improvement of etching process. In this work, inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICPRIE) system was adopted for the improvement of etching process using MgO thin films and etching gas mixes of $CH_4$/Ar and $CH_4$/$O_2$/Ar have been employed. The etch rates are measured by a surface profilometer and etch profiles are observed using field emission scanning emission microscopy (FESEM). The effects of gas concentration and etch parameters such as coil rf power, dc-bias voltage to substrate, and gas pressure on etch characteristics will be systematically explored.