Charge pump with a power-controlled clock buffer to reduce power consumption and output voltage ripple

1. A charge pump system, comprising:

a charge pump circuit connected to receive N pump clock signals and generate therefrom an output voltage, where N is an integer greater than or equal to one;

regulation circuitry connected to receive the output voltage and generate a regulation signal based on the output voltage;

an oscillator circuit providing N initial clock signals; and

N clock buffer circuits, each receiving a corresponding one of the initial clock signals and generating therefrom a corresponding one of the pump clock signals, wherein each of the buffer circuits includes:

a plurality of inverters connected in series, with the first inverter in the series connected to receive the corresponding initial clock signal as input and the last inverter in the series providing the corresponding pump clock signal as output; and

a corresponding plurality of clamp elements connected to receive the regulation signal and through which a corresponding one of the inverter is connected to a power supply level, the voltage level being supplied to the corresponding inverter being dependent upon the regulation signal.

2. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the charge pump circuit is a Dickson type charge pump.

3. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the charge pump circuits is a voltage doubler type charge pump.

4. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the charge pump circuits is a four-phase type of charge pump.

5. The charge pump circuit of claim 1 , wherein N is two and the pump clock signals are non-overlapping.

6. The charge pump circuit of claim 1 , wherein the regulation circuitry includes:

a voltage divider connected between the output voltage and ground; and

a comparator having a first input connected to a node of the voltage divider, a second input connected to a reference voltage level, and an output supplying the regulation signal.

7. The charge pump circuit of claim 1 , wherein each of the inverter comprises:

a PMOS transistor between an internal node and, through the corresponding clamp element, the power supply level; and

an NMOS transistor connected between the internal node and ground,

wherein the input of the inverter is connected to the gates of the PMOS and NMOS transistors and the output of the inverter is taken from the internal node.

8. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the clamp element is a PMOS transistor having a gate voltage determined by the regulation signal.

9. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the clamp element is an NMOS transistor having a gate voltage determined by the regulation signal.

10. The charge pump system of claim 9 , wherein the regulation circuitry includes an auxiliary charge pump for use in generating the regulation signal.

11. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the clamp element is a PMOS transistor having a gate voltage determined by the regulation signal in parallel with an NMOS transistor having a gate voltage determined by the regulation signal.

12. The charge pump system of claim 1 , wherein the charge pump system is a peripheral circuit element on a monolithic three-dimensional semiconductor memory device.

13. The charge pump system of claim 12 , wherein the semiconductor memory device further comprises a three-dimensional (3D) non-volatile memory that includes multiple memory cells arranged in multiple physical levels above a silicon substrate.

14. The charge pump system of claim 13 , wherein the charge pump system is connectable to the three-dimensional (3D) non-volatile memory to supply a programming voltage level thereto.

15. The charge pump system of claim 13 , wherein the charge pump system is connectable to the three-dimensional (3D) non-volatile memory to supply an erase voltage level thereto.