SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To suppress an increase in a circuit scale, and secure read-out margin even when electrical characteristics of a real memory cell are degraded.SOLUTION: The semiconductor memory includes a nonvolatile real memory cell and a reference memory cell, a first load and a first switch which are arranged in series between the reference memory cell and a power source line, a second load and a second switch which are arranged in series between the reference memory cell and the power source line, a load control circuit in which the first switch is turned on when a set signal is at a first level, the second switch is turned on when the set signal is at a second level, and load amounts of the first load and the second load are different from each other, and a sense amplifier for comparing a cell current flowing in the real memory cell with a reference current in a read-out operation.