摘要:
A circuit and method of using a test mode to control the timing of an internal signal using an external control in an integrated circuit. The test mode is designed such that the timing of the internal signal is derived from the external control which can be arbitrarily controlled by a tester. The external signal can be applied to an existing pin for chip control, provided that there is no conflict between the test mode and the operation of the integrated circuit.
摘要:
A circuit and method of using a test mode to control the timing of an internal signal using an external control in an integrated circuit. The test mode is designed such that the timing of the internal signal is derived from the external control which can be arbitrarily controlled by a tester. The external signal can be applied to an existing pin for chip control, provided that there is no conflict between the test mode and the operation of the integrated circuit.
摘要:
A bit line pair is coupled through a pair of high-resistance pass gates (164L,164R) to a sense amp (166). During sense, the high-resistance pass gates (164L,164R) act in conjunction with the charge stored on the bit line pair as, effectively, a high-resistance passive load for the sense amp (166). A control circuit (185) selectively switches on and off bit line equalisation coincident with selectively passing either the equalisation voltage or set voltages to the sense amp (166) and an active sense amp load (172,174). Further, after it is set, the sense amp (166) is selectively connected to LDLs (182,184) through low-resistance column select pass gates (178,180). Therefore, the sense amp (166) quickly discharges one of the connected LDL pair while the bit line voltage remains essentially unchanged. Thus, data is passed from the sense amp (166) to a second sense amplifier and off chip. After data is passed to the LDLs (182,184), the control circuit (185) enables the active sense amp load (172,174) to pull the sense amp high side to a full up level. Additionally, because the control circuit (185) uses the equalisation voltage to disable the sense amp (166), cell signal margin may be tested in a new way. Instead of varying the sense amp reference voltage, as in prior art signal margin tests, cell signal margin is tested by varying cell signal. The cell signal may be selected to determine both a high and a low signal margin.
摘要:
An improved method for isolating electrical conductors which are positioned over each other is disclosed. These conductors would normally contact each other because of the somewhat imprecise patterning and etching steps used to fabricate a multitude of conductive elements, e.g., in a very dense semiconductor structure. The method involves forming a recess in the upper surface of the lower conductor, and then at least partially filling the recess with an oxide-type material. This method is particularly valuable in the construction of stacked capacitor cells. Cells prepared using this technique also form part of this invention.
摘要:
An anomalous threshold voltage dependence on channel width measured on 0.25 µm ground rule generation trench-isolated buried-channel p-MOSFETs is used to enhance circuit performance. According to the invention, a set of transistors (100) having a source node (30), a drain node (40) and a common gate (20) can be constructed. Each of the N transistors in the set (10-1 to 10-N) has a channel width (Wn) chosen to provide the desired V t . The total number N is chosen to have the required current for the application in question. As the channel width is reduced, the magnitude of the threshold voltage first decreases before the onset of the expected sharp rise in V t for widths narrower than 0.4 µm. Modeling shows that a "boron puddle" is created near the trench bounded edge as a result of transient enhanced diffusion (TED) during the gate oxidation step, which imposes a penalty on the off-current of narrow devices. TED is governed by interstitials produced by a deep phosphorus implant, used for latchup suppression, diffusing towards the trench sidewall and top surface of the device.