Appeal No. 1997-2294 Page 2 Application No. 08/284,183 BACKGROUND The invention at issue in this appeal is a sense amplifier for use in an integrated circuit (IC) memory. An IC memory includes many memory cells, which are arranged in rows and columns. A column is a collection of memory cells along a bit line pair. Each column is connected to a sense amplifier. The sense amplifier senses the effect a memory cell has on the bit line pair and amplifies a signal for reading data from the memory cell. In addition, the sense amplifier drives, i.e., controls, the bit line pair for writing data into the memory cell. When conventional sense amplifiers are employed in large memories, the amplifiers work inefficiently and slowly, prolong access time, suffer patten sensitivities, and are unstable. The invention aims to overcome these problems. In particular, the inventive sense amplifier includes a latch circuit coupled to a pair of bit lines of an IC memory and a pair of local data write driver circuits coupled to the latch circuit. The local data write driver circuits are coupled toPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007