METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INITIALIZING INTEGRATED CIRCUIT USING COMPRESSED DATA FROM REMOTE FUSE BOX

摘要

PURPOSE: A method and apparatus for initializing an integrated circuit using compressed data from a remote fuse box are provided to realize a greater quantity of repair points per fuse. CONSTITUTION: Fuses(12) are arranged in a block isolated from the fuse-programmable macros, in order to overcome the obstacles associated with placing fuses such as interference with interconnect points, inefficient use of die area due to guard rings, laser-programmable fuses or e-fuses requiring the entire layer stack for implementation, etc. The fuse data contains compressed information that is decompressed by decompressor(14) to produce the control data for repairing or customizing fuse-programmable macros(16). Shift registers(18) within the macros are arranged in chains to allow serial clocking of decompressed control data received from decompressor(14), so that at initialization, the control data is propagated to fuse-programmable macros(16). After initialization, the functional logic implemented by fuse-programmable macros(16) will be configured for operation of integrated circuit(10).