Complementary data line driver circuits with conditional charge recycling capability that may be used in random access and content addressable memory devices and method of operating same

摘要

Complementary data line driver circuits conserve power by evaluating data on complementary data lines and providing conditional charge recycling in the event the new data to be provided to the complementary data lines differs from the old data residing thereon. These devices and circuits include first and second data lines within a complementary data line pair and a driver control circuit that is electrically coupled to the data line pair. The driver control circuit compares the old data on the data line pair against new data to be provided to the data line pair. Based on the comparison and determination that the old data is opposite the new data, the driver control circuit switches the old data to the new data in two steps. The first of the two steps includes transferring charge from the more positively biased one of the first and second data lines to the other data line in the data line pair, preferably for a duration sufficient to substantially equilibrate voltages on the first and second data lines.