Patent ID: 8363507

Claim:
A wordline driver comprising: a pre-driver configured to generate a wordline enable signal and a wordline disable signal based on one or more selection signals, one or more decoded address signals and one or more timing control signals; a transmission circuit configured to amplify the wordline enable signal and transmit the amplified wordline enable signal; and a sub-wordline driver configured to control a voltage level of a sub-wordline based on the amplified wordline enable signal and the wordline disable signal, wherein the sub-wordline driver is configured to deactivate the sub-wordline of the sub-wordline driver in response to the amplified wordline enable signal that is deactivated at a deactivation time point of a first timing control signal of the one or more timing control signals and to deactivate the sub-wordline in response to the wordline disable signal that is activated at a deactivation time point of a second timing control signal of the one or more timing control signals, wherein the sub-wordline is configured to be deactivated regardless of logic levels of the one or more decoded address signals, wherein the pre-driver is configured to control independently a transition time point for a deactivation of the amplified wordline enable signal and a transition time point for an activation of the wordline disable signal, in response to the first and second timing control signals, respectively, and wherein the wordline driver is configured to not use the at least one of the one or more timing control signals to control a transition time point for an activation of the amplified wordline enable signal and to control a transition time point for a deactivation of the wordline disable signal.