A sense amplifier, system and methods for increasing a noise margin of the
sense amplifier are contemplated herein. In general, the sense amplifier
includes a pair of cascode transistors coupled in parallel between a
power supply node and a sense line of the sense amplifier. The sense
amplifier also includes a precharge node coupled to the power supply node
through a first precharge transistor, and a sense node coupled to the
power supply node through a second precharge transistor. The sense
amplifier described herein functions to separate the sense node from the
precharge node with the pair of cascode transistors, which in turn,
increases the noise margin of the sense amplifier by decoupling the sense
node from any voltage fluctuations that may be present on the sense line
during a sensing state.