Patent ID: 7486579

Claim:
A method for controlling a semiconductor apparatus, comprising: providing a semiconductor apparatus including a plurality of sense amplifiers based on an overdrive system, wherein said overdrive system comprising: a first switch device interconnecting said sense amplifiers connected in parallel and a first power supply; a replica circuit which copies operation of the first switch device, a control circuit which compares a first reference voltage and an output of the replica circuit, a second switch device interconnecting said sense amplifiers and a second power supply; the method further comprising: a) before an overdrive operation, cutting off the first switch device and the second switch device to disable the control circuit and the replica circuit; b) starting an overdrive operation by activating the control circuit to turn on the first switch device and to activate the replica circuit so as to overdrive the sense amplifiers; c) turning off by the control circuit, the first switch device to disable the replica circuit, when an output voltage of the replica circuit reaches a first reference voltage; and d) ending the overdrive operation by turning on the second switch device to maintain the sense amplifiers at a potential of the second power supply.