Patent ID: 6992914
Filing Date: 2006-01-31
Classification: G11C,H01L

Abstract:
1. A ferroelectric-type nonvolatile semiconductor memory comprising a plurality of bit lines and a plurality of memory cells, each memory cell comprising a first electrode, a first side of a ferroelectric layer connected to said first electrode and a second side of the ferroelectric layer connected to a second electrode, each of said memory cells belonging to one of two or more thermal history groups having different thermal histories with regard to their production processes, each member of a pair of said memory cells being selectively connected to a corresponding one of first and second bit lines, and wherein each member of the pair of memory cells belongs to a different thermal history group, said pair of bit lines being connected to a differential sense amplifier, wherein, when data stored in a first one of said memory cells forming the pair is read out, a first reference potential is provided to the second bit line which is isolated from the second one of the memory cells of the pair, when data stored in the second one of said memory cells forming the pair is read out, a second reference potential is provided to the first bit line, and the first reference potential is provided to the second bit line when reading data from all other memory cells belonging to the same thermal history group as the first one of said memory cells and the second reference potential is applied to the first bit line when reading data from all other memory cells belonging to the same thermal history group as the second memory cell, and further wherein each pair of memory cells stores 1 bit of data.