Grouped Global Wordline Drivers with Shared Bias

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

As NAND memory density increases, the number of global wordline drivers required also increases, leading to a significant consumption of periphery area in memory devices, which is not efficiently utilized due to the fixed size of these drivers.

Innovation Solution

Grouping multiple global wordline drivers together to share common components such as multiplexers, level shifters, and multi-well level shifters, allowing for a reduction in the number of drivers needed and a compacting of circuit area.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Quantity of substance

If the number of global wordline drivers is increased to support more wordlines, then the number of supported wordlines increases, but the periphery area consumed increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenumber of wordlinesVSAvoidperiphery area

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSArea of stationary object

Solution Approach 1:

Multiple global wordline drivers are grouped together to share common level shifters and multiplexers. Specifically, groups of 4, 8, 16, or 32 drivers share a single level shifter, dramatically reducing the total number of level shifters needed and thus reducing periphery area consumption while supporting more wordlines

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The shared level shifter serves multiple global wordline drivers simultaneously, making it a universal component that performs the same function for multiple drivers. This multi-functionality reduces the overall component count and periphery area required

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Quantity of substance

If the number of global wordline drivers is increased to support more wordlines, then the wordline coverage increases, but the device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenumber of wordlinesVSAvoiddriver complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

By grouping multiple drivers to share common components (level shifters, multiplexers), the overall system complexity is reduced despite supporting more wordlines. The shared components eliminate the need for separate dedicated components for each driver

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

3Area of stationary object

If the periphery area is reduced by shrinking driver size, then the area efficiency improves, but the number of supported wordlines is limited

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveperiphery areaVSAvoidnumber of wordlines

Core Design Contradiction:

Area of stationary objectVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

Grouping drivers to share level shifters allows more drivers (and thus more wordlines) to be supported within the same periphery area, effectively increasing area efficiency while expanding wordline capacity

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentUS12315567B2Grouped global wordline driver with shared bias scheme

Publication Date: 2025.05.27 INTEL NDTM US LLC

AI summary

Systems, apparatuses, and methods may provide for technology that groups a plurality of wordline drivers together and supports these grouped wordline drivers via a shared multiplexer, a shared level shifter, and/or one or more shared multi-well level shifters. In one example, such technology includes a shared multiplexer and a first and second grouped global wordline driver coupled to the shared multiplexer. The shared multiplexer is to access data state information from a plurality of memory cells. The first grouped global wordline driver is to output a first plurality of wordlines associated with a first plane. The second grouped global wordline driver is to output a second plurality of wordlines associated with a second plane, where the second plane is different than the first plane.