A low-noise 2-GB/s 256-Mb packet-based DRAM with a robust array power supply

With a robust array power supply, the array noise is remarkably suppressed in 256-Mb packet-based DRAM. The array power supply is equipped with direct driver discharge, Vgs clamp, high-VCC compensator, and low-VCC Vgs booster. The VCCA drop and overshoot are improved from 133 mV to 70 mV and from 260 mV to 120 mV, respectively, as all these features are included. The tranquil VCCA results in active restoration improvement by 3.0 ns in the full chip performance. The suppression of the VCCA overshoot makes high speed operation reliable owing to rapid column precharge. The power consumption by the VCCA generator is also reduced by 35% because of the time-variant DC current control.