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US 8,427,857 B2Granted
Electrical fuse programming time control scheme
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsPo-Hung Chen, Sung-Chieh Lin, Kuoyuan Hsu, Jiann-Tseng Huang
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A circuit includes a fuse and a sensing and control circuit. The fuse is coupled between a MOS transistor and a current source node. The sensing and control circuit is configured to receive a programming pulse and output a modified programming signal to the gate of the MOS transistor for programming the fuse. The modified programming signal has a pulse width based on a magnitude of a current through the first fuse.
Claims18
A circuit, comprising:
- a fuse coupled between a MOS transistor and a current source node;
- and
- a sensing and control circuit coupled to a gate of the MOS transistor, the sensing and control circuit configured to receive a programming pulse and to output a modified programming signal to the gate of the MOS transistor for programming the first fuse, the modified programming signal having a pulse width based on a magnitude of a current through the first fuse as sensed by an operational amplifier that is configured to generate a voltage representation of the current flowing through the first fuse in response to sensing the magnitude of the current through the first fuse.
A method, comprising:
- generating an intermediate programming pulse in response to receiving a programming pulse at a pulse generator;
- sensing the current through the fuse with an operational amplifier:
- generating a signal identifying if the current through the fuse falls below a threshold level based on a comparison of a voltage representation of the current through the fuse as generated by the operational amplifier to a reference voltage;
- and
- outputting a modified programming pulse to a gate of a transistor in response to receiving one of the intermediate programming pulse or the signal identifying that the current through the fuse has fallen below the threshold level,
- wherein the modified programming pulse controls the current through the fuse.
3 more elements
An integrated circuit, comprising:
- a fuse coupled to a first MOS transistor and to a voltage supply node;
- and
- a programming circuit for providing a first programming signal to a gate of the MOS transistor for programming the fuse in response to receiving one of a second programming signal or a signal identifying that a current through the fuse has fallen below a threshold level wherein an OR gate receives the signal identifying that the current through the fuse falls below the threshold from a comparator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.