Providing for a non-volatile semiconductor memory architecture that achieves high read performance is described herein. In one aspect, an array of memory transistors arranged electrically in serial is configured to control a gate voltage of a pass transistor. The pass transistor, in turn, enables current flow between two metal bitlines of the semiconductor memory architecture. Accordingly, a relative voltage or relative current of the two metal bitlines can be measured and utilized to determine a program or erase state of a transistor of the serial array of transistors. In a particular aspect, a transistor with small capacitance is chosen for the pass transistor, resulting in a fast correspondence of the pass transistor gate voltage/current relative to transistor array current. This can equate to fast read times for the transistor array, based on differential sensing of the two metal bitlines.