Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Having specific delay in producing output waveform
Patent
1997-09-11
2000-12-05
Kim, Jung Ho
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Having specific delay in producing output waveform
327393, H03H 1126
Patent
active
061572365
ABSTRACT:
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for repairing or improving the behavior of a tunable circuit of an integrated circuit (IC) when a target parameter exceeds a predetermined range due to a design and/or fabrication problem. The tunable circuit includes one or more tuning controllers for tuning a corresponding number of target circuits. Each tuning controller includes one or more registers and an optional decoder. Each target circuit includes a tunable portion and a functional portion. The functional portion can have one or more of a wide variety of functions including but not limited to logical gates, buffers, signal generators and amplifiers. The selectable parameters of the tunable circuit include timing delays, trip voltages, rise/fall times and/or output impedances. When a circuit designer wishes to tune the target parameter, an appropriate tuning pattern is latched into registers of the tuning controller. In turn, the tuning controller generates corresponding tuning pattern signals enabling target circuit(s) to changeably tune the target parameter by selectively enabling different tunable portions of the target circuit. For example, by selecting the appropriate load resistance and/or capacitance of the tunable circuit, the rise/fall time of the target circuit is tuned for compatibility with respect to the other portions of the IC or system. The tunable circuit of the present invention advantageously lends itself to post-fabrication correction of design or fabrication problems, thereby increasing the potential yield rate. In addition, the tunable circuit can be tested under different operating conditions in a non-destructive manner without the need for another time-consuming and costly IC fabrication cycle. Other advantages include the ability to selectively operate target circuit(s) of the IC at a higher speed under ideal conditions and at a lower speed under hostile conditions.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4604731 (1986-08-01), Konishi
patent: 5121014 (1992-06-01), Huang
patent: 5373199 (1994-12-01), Shichinohe et al.
patent: 5467041 (1995-11-01), Baba et al.
patent: 5471663 (1995-11-01), Davis
patent: 5729158 (1998-03-01), Ravijan et al.
Rajivan Sathyanandan
Salem Raoul B.
Kim Jung Ho
Sun Microsystems Inc.
LandOfFree
Parametric tuning of an integrated circuit after fabrication does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Parametric tuning of an integrated circuit after fabrication, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Parametric tuning of an integrated circuit after fabrication will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-965128