Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Brendon L Johnson

Roland T Knaack

Cameron B Lacy

The present invention disables defective rows in a FIFO or other buffer where the word lines of the FIFO buffer are driven by a shift register scheme. Additional enabled rows may be placed within the normal memory array. The additional enabled rows are substituted, as needed, for one or more defective rows. As a result, a defective row can be disabled without effecting the operation of the FIFO, particularly the read or write data path. In one example, the disabling effect is achieved by using one or more laser fuses. The present invention can be used to effectively bypass any single shift register element or a multiple number of shift register elements.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Brendon L Johnson