System and method for integrated circuit memory repair with binary-encoded repair control word

摘要

Memory blocks in an integrated circuit (IC) chip can be repaired by employing automated test equipment external to the IC chip to aid in burning fuses on the IC chip by encoding the fuses with binary-encoded numbers. Each binary-encoded number represents a bit position of each “1” bit of a repair control word corresponding to a defective memory location. During a repair sequence preceding operation of the IC chip, the binary-encoded numbers are read out of the fuses and used to form a serial stream of repair chain information.

主权项

1. A method for repairing a memory in an integrated circuit (IC) chip, the IC chip comprising a plurality of memory locations, self-test logic, a test access port, a plurality of fuses, and fuse burn logic, the method comprising:
activating the self-test logic to produce information identifying one or more defective memory locations; communicating the information identifying the one or more defective memory locations to an automated test equipment via the test access port; the automated test equipment determining a repair control word corresponding to each defective memory location in response to the information identifying the one or more defective memory locations; the automated test equipment determining a binary-encoded number in response to a bit position of each “1” bit of each repair control word; the automated test equipment communicating fuse burn information corresponding to one or more binary-encoded numbers to the IC chip via the test access port; and activating the fuse burn logic to burn one or more fuses to encode the one or more binary-encoded numbers.