System and method of a novel redundancy scheme for OTP

摘要

A novel redundancy scheme to repair no more than one defect per I/O in a One-Time-Programmable (OTP) memory is disclosed. An OTP memory has a plurality of OTP cells in a plurality of I/Os and at least one auxiliary OTP cell associated with each I/O. At least one volatile cell in each I/O corresponds to the auxiliary OTP cells. At least one Boolean gate to invert the data into and/or out of the main OTP memory in each I/O independently based on the data in the volatile cells. The data in each I/O of the OTP memory can be inverted if no more than one defect per I/O is found. Furthermore, the inversion scheme can be achieved by reading the auxiliary OTP cells and storing into the volatile cells by automatically generating at least one read cycle upon initialization.

主权项

1. A One-Time Programmable (OTP) memory, comprising:
at least one main OTP array having a plurality of OTP cells in a plurality of I/Os and at least one auxiliary OTP array with at least one OTP cell associated with each I/O; the at least one OTP cell having at least one OTP element and a selector; at least one volatile cell per I/O to store data corresponding to the auxiliary OTP cells; a plurality of Boolean gates to invert the OTP cell data in each I/O into or out of the main OTP array if the volatile cell in each I/O is set; wherein the OTP memory can be configured to repair defects by inverting the data into and out of the main array in each I/O independently when no more than one defect per I/O is found; and wherein the inversion scheme is achieved by automatically generating at least one cycle to read the auxiliary OTP cells and store the data into the volatile cells upon initialization.