A MOS capacitor receiving a clock signal complementary to a sampling clock
signal is provided at an input of a clocked inverter that is activated
after sampling an input signal to perform level conversion. A charge pump
operation of the MOS capacitor is performed in parallel with the
activation of the clocked inverter. The power consumption of and the area
occupied by a level conversion circuit converting a voltage amplitude of
the input signal are reduced without deteriorating a high-speed operating
characteristics.