A novel architecture that enables fast write/read in poly-PMOS load or
high-resistance polyload single-bit-line cells is developed. The arch
itecture for write uses alternate twin word activation (ATWA) with bit
-line pulsing. A dummy cell is used to obtain a reference voltage for
reading. An excellent balance between a normal cell signal line and a
dummy cell signal link is attained using balanced common data-line arc
hitecture. A newly developed self-bias-control (SBC) sense amplifier p
rovides excellent stability and fast sensing performance for input vol
tages close to V-CC at a low power supply of 2.5 V. The single-bit-lin
e architecture is incorporated in a 16-Mb SRAM, which was fabricated u
sing 0.25-mu m CMOS technology. The proposed single-bit-line architect
ure reduces the cell area to 2.3 mu m(2), which is two-thirds of a con
ventional two-bit-line cell with the same processes. The 16-Mb SRAM, a
test chip for a 64-Mb SRAM, shows a 15-ns address access time and a 2
0-ns cycle time.