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US 6,617,914 B1Granted
Electrical antifuse with external capacitance
AssigneeInfineon Technologies AG
InventorChandrasekharan Kothandaraman
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AssigneeInfineon Technologies AG
InventorChandrasekharan Kothandaraman
Estimating the term…
An antifuse having a dielectric disposed between a plurality of conductive elements is programmed with one of the conductive elements connected to a capacitor. The antifuse is programmed to an “on” state by precharging the capacitor and then applying a programming voltage to another one of the conductive elements. This results in the breakdown of the interposed dielectric to form a conductive link between the conductive elements. Immediately, following the formation of a conductive link, the electrical energy stored in the capacitor is released through the conductive link across the dielectric. Further, the capacitor can be common to a plurality of programmable antifuses and the application of the programming voltage serves to select one of the plurality of antifuses to be ‘blown’. This arrangement can be realized in a FET and the device can be easily integrated in the CMOS process commonly used for the manufacture of memory arrays and logic circuitry.
A method of programming any selected one of a plurality of antifuses, each antifuse comprising a dielectric disposed between conductive elements, said method comprising:
An apparatus comprising:
A system for use with a plurality of addressable memory cells, said system comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.