Changing chip function based on fuse states
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsKarl Erickson, John Fifield, Chandrasekharan Kothandaraman, Phil Paone, William Tonti
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Techniques and systems whereby operation of and/or access to particular features of an electronic device may be controlled after the device has left the control of the manufacturer are provided. The operation and/or access may be provided based on values stored in non-volatile storage elements, such as electrically programmable fused (eFUSES).
Claims26
A method for controlling access to specific modules of an integrated circuit device, comprising:
- setting a device state for the integrated circuit device in an electrically programmable fuse bank comprising a plurality of electrically programmable fuses;
- reading the device state from the electrically programmable fuse bank with a device controller;
- and
- disabling modules of the integrated circuit device in accordance with the device state read by the system controller.
A method for controlling access to chip registers throughout the life of the chip, comprising:
- setting a device state into a bank of electrically programmable fuses on the chip;
- reading the device state on startup of the chip;
- and
- configuring access to registers of the chip in accordance with the read device state during the chip initialization process.
An apparatus for controlling access to chip registers throughout the life of the chip, comprising:
- a chip controller;
- a chip communication interface in communication with the controller;
- at least one chip register configured to store information therein;
- and
- an electrically programmable fuse bank positioned in communication with controller, the electrically programmable fuse bank being programmable with a unique device state that is used by the controller to regulate access to the at least one chip register via the communication interface.
A method of controlling access to features of an electronic device, comprising:
- providing a bank of electrically programmable fuses on the electronic device;
- shipping the electronic device in a product with a first set of features enabled;
- and
- after shipping the product, enabling an additional feature not included in the first set of features by programming one or more of the bank of electrically programmable fuses.
A method for disabling one or more features of an integrated circuit device, comprising:
- detecting an event;
- and
- in response to detecting the event, applying one or more high voltage spikes to field effect transistors (FETs) of circuits utilized to implement the one or more features, wherein the particular FETs to which the high voltage spikes are applied are determined by values stored in a bank of non-volatile storage elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.