A semiconductor memory cell comprising an electrically floating body having two stable states is disclosed. A method of operating the memory cell is disclosed.

A receiver that receives a multi-level signal includes a compensation circuit, a sampling circuit, an output circuit and a mode selector. The compensation circuit generates a plurality of data signals and a plurality of reference voltages by compensating intersymbol interference on an input data signal. The sampling circuit generates a plurality of sample signals based on the plurality of data signals and the plurality of reference voltages. The output circuit generates output data based on the plurality of sample signals, and selects a current value of the output data based on a previous value of the output data. The mode selector generates a mode selection signal used to select one of first and second operation modes based on an operating environment. The compensation circuit and the sampling circuit are entirely enabled in the first operation mode, and the compensation circuit and the sampling circuit are partially enabled in the second operation mode.

CMOS harvesting circuits are disclosed for conventional 6T SRAM bitcell arrays enabling substantial improvements to SRAM access time, pipeline performance and to SRAM active and leakage energy consumption—without scaling operating voltages while also improving Read and Write margins using assist schemes at very low area and energy overhead by reusing circuits that harvest charge. Active energy dissipation during an SRAM read access is lowered by use of novel sensing schemes that self-limit signal development on the BL without the energy overheads seen in conventional designs from sense-amp offsets, BL column leakage and uncertain read current. Improvements in access time are enabled by increasing the signal development rate on the BL—by comparing the rising electric potential of harvested charge with a decreasing BL voltage in a bitcell column using a novel and compact inverting amplifier with dynamic reset. This area and energy efficient scheme leveraging availability of harvested charge not only self-limits signal development on the BL to lower active power and improve read latency, but also eliminates most of the uncertainty of BL voltage signal from uncertain read current by using a capacitive divider. Charge harvested in each column of bitcells from a read/write access is moved to a local harvest grid with a fraction of the capacitance of the BLs accessed in the subarray, at a voltage closer to V.sub.DD and is readily tapped into during a following Write access lowering write energy consumption from the power grid by over 30%. Active or standby mode leakage is lowered by the raised voltage of the harvesting node in each column—that is discharged only before the WL selects —for all columns during a Read and for half-select columns during a Write

Embodiments of the disclosure are drawn to apparatuses and methods for a sequence of refreshing memory mats. During a refresh operation, wordlines of the memory may be refreshed in a sequence. Groups of wordlines may be organized into memory mats. In order to prevent noise, each time a wordline in a memory mat is refreshed, the next wordline to be refreshed may be in a mat which is not physically adjacent to the mat containing the previously refreshed wordline.

A semiconductor memory cell comprising an electrically floating body having two stable states is disclosed. A method of operating the memory cell is disclosed.

A semiconductor chip may include a memory, a power supply line, a noise generator and a switch. The power supply line may include first and second power supply line portions. The power supply line may be configured to provide a power supply signal through each of the first power supply line portion and the second power supply line portion. The noise generator may be connected to the second power supply line portion. The noise generator may be configured to receive the power supply signal from the second power supply line portion, and output a noisy power supply signal based on the power supply signal. The switch may be coupled to the memory, the first power supply line portion, and the noise generator. The switch may be configured to selectively electrically connect the memory to one of the first power supply line portion and the noise generator.

A voltage generation circuit includes a noise attenuation circuit configured to attenuate a noise of a second power voltage which has a level that is at least two times higher than that of a first power voltage, and a multi-stage voltage pump configured to receive a noise-attenuated second power voltage from the noise attenuation circuit and generate at least one of plural target voltages, each target voltage having a different level. The first and second power voltages are individually input from an external device via different pins or pads.

Some embodiments include apparatuses and methods of operating such apparatuses. One of such apparatuses includes a data line, a conductive region, and a memory cell including a first transistor and a second transistor. The first transistor includes a first channel region coupled to the data line and the conductive region, a charge storage structure, and a first gate. The second transistor includes a second channel region coupled to the data line and the charge storage structure, and a second gate. The first gate is electrically separated from the second gate and opposite from the second gate in a direction from the first channel region to the second channel region.

A method includes adding a set of one or more victim rows to a first probabilistic filter and to a second probabilistic filter, in response to a memory access request, identifying a candidate victim row adjacent to a memory address specified by a memory access request, identifying the candidate victim row as a victim row in the set of victim rows based on performing a lookup of the candidate victim row in a selected filter, where the selected filter includes one of the first probabilistic filter and the second probabilistic filter, in response to identifying the candidate row as the victim row, enabling a row hammering countermeasure, clearing the first probabilistic filter in each of a first set of time periods, and clearing the second probabilistic filter in each of a second set of time periods interleaved with the first set of time periods.

A non-volatile data storage device includes memory cells arranged in a plurality of blocks and a memory controller coupled to the memory cells for controlling operations of the memory cells. The memory controller is configured to determine if a given block is a bad m-bit multi-level block. In an m-bit multi-level block, each memory cell is an m-bit multi-level cell (MLC), m being an integer equal to or greater than 2. Upon determining that the given block is a good m-bit multi-level block, the memory controller assigns the given block to be an m-bit multi-level user block. Upon determining that the given block is a bad m-bit multi-level block, the memory controller determines if the given block is a good n-bit block. In an n-bit block, each memory cell is an n-bit cell, n being an integer less than m. Upon determining that the given block is a good n-bit block, the memory controller assigns the given block to be an n-bit user block or an n-bit write-buffer block.