Appeal No. 1998-1657 Page 2
Application No. 08/674,282
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 sense
amplifier latch coupled to a pair of bit lines of an IC
memory. A local column read amplifier is coupled to data read
lines and to internal nodes of the latch.
Claim 35, which is representative for our purposes,
follows:
35. A sense amplifier arrangement for an integrated
circuit memory, the sense amplifier arrangement
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