Sense amplifiers provided for each of the bit line pairs are divided into groups to be independently driven, whereby the influence of sense amplifiers of different groups can be prevented, and therefore the destruction of data of the non-selected memory cells during data transfer can be prevented. In transferring data from the data register to the memory cell array, the sense amplifier is not activated until the stored information of the memory cells selected by the word line is fully read to the corresponding bit lines, whereby the destruction of data stored in the non-selected memory cells can be prevented.